


The Red Fog Incident

by ADeadDiehard



Category: Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona Series
Genre: Angst, Canon Rewrite, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Dredging Up The Past, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-10 15:50:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 42,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11694912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADeadDiehard/pseuds/ADeadDiehard
Summary: In the wake of the P-1 Grand Prix, The Shadow Operatives and Investigation Team are each trying to uncover the Malevolent Entity behind it. However, at the edge of the collective unconscious, forces are already at work to destroy all they have fought for. A reimagining of P4 Ultimax.





	1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

 

“I'm home!” Yu called out as he slid the door shut behind him. Nobody answered the young man. He sighed, wondering if his uncle would have words for him in the morning. Not that it would matter, since his uncle wouldn't risk upsetting Nanako with anything that looked like a fight. Besides, the man's relationship with his nephew was too friendly for him to hold something so small against him for long.

 

Yu slid his shoes off and checked his phone for the time, '22:40'. The walk back from his girlfriend's family inn took longer than he thought.

 

_Looks like I've already been away for too long._

 

To Yu's credit, the return to his adoptive home wasn't as peaceful as he had hoped. A whole other team of Persona users, two of them androids, an awakening, and more than the usual trouble that came before such a thing all in one day was a bit much, even for someone with a life as exciting as his. Of course, his own team had added to the surreal factor with Kanji spending almost the entire ordeal thinking he was dreaming and Teddie's unusual protectiveness towards the mechanical kidnapping victim.

 

Kidnapping. Yu pinched the bridge of his nose. The one behind putting Labrys into the TV world added insult to injury by forcing her to fight her rescuers almost to the point of self-destruction. If it wasn't for the Shadow Operatives' support specialist lying in wait, the day would have ended on a far more tragic note. Mitsuru Kirijo, the woman in charge, had made clear she wanted to keep the Investigation Team from getting further wrapped up in the hunt for the culprit, though it did little to discourage Yu and his friends from planning to help them regardless.

 

The silver-haired youth stretched out his arms as he climbed the stairs up to his room. They had a long day tomorrow.

 

~

 

As the manager's son at the local Junes, most people figured Yosuke would get the cushy jobs, as you'd expect from a city boy riding high on nepotism. The thing is, said manager likely predicted that assumption and overcompensated by making Yosuke the unofficial HR rep and a general workhorse. Though the young brown-haired man suspected it was more so he could earn Teddie's keep, considering the handful his wacky roommate had been over the last 10 months.

 

Right now, Yosuke could hardly blame his dad.

 

“ _Rowr_! Getting close enough to a bod like Mittchan's almost makes me want to be her next coat, don't you think, Yosuke?” The store had been closed to the public almost two hours ago, with all the other staff following shortly after. Unfortunately, this gave Teddie the chance to gush about their new acquaintances from their secret lives to Yosuke, who had been forced to listen to him for the past hour while doing both of their cleanup work, which was already lagging behind.

 

In all fairness, the ladies of the Shadow Operatives were stunning both in terms of looks and power. Their leader, Mitsuru Kirijo with her form-fitting body armour and commanding presence, the blonde android Aigis, utterly fearless and boasting an almost ridiculous stockpile of weapons hidden away in her chassis... Even Fuuka, their support, had managed to save the day in the TV world all the way from the real world.

 

Then, something dawned on Yosuke. For all of Teddie's yammering, the cartoon-bear-turned-human hadn't breathed a word about Labrys the whole time. Strange for someone who had spent almost the entire day glued to her…

 

“Okay then, how about Labrys?”

 

Teddie's almost perpetual grin froze. “Wha?”

 

“I mean, you've gone on about her sister, so you clearly don't have a problem with that. So come on, what'cha think about her?”

 

The blonde remained frozen for an instant before picking up the nearest carton of TaB soda cans and striding off purposefully.

 

“This is no time for slacking off, Yosuke! Pops will have our hides if we _claws_ things to be held back tomorrow!”

 

“ _Pops?”_ Yosuke wondered, deciding to shrug it off and follow Teddie. If nothing else, it looks like he found a way to improve the mascot's work ethic.

 

~

 

_Ten more minutes, then I'll go back and try again,_ Chie thought to herself as she ran along the floodplain.

 

Not thirty minutes ago, she'd woken up at her desk with the letter she had tried to write to her 'master' - Akihiko Sanada – spoilt with drool. The only way she was going to get anything done at this rate was with plenty of fresh air to clear her head, or at least she hoped so. The young Satonaka was never that good at solving problems with a pencil. Chie groaned. Her ambitions to join the police force appeared dead on arrival due to her difficulty with studying. The quotation she lead her life by didn't seem to offer any comfort either.

 

“Don't think, feel.”

 

All she was _feeling_ right now was frustration, especially when Yu and her best friend Yukiko seemed to take to studying naturally.

 

She shook her head. Her lingering jealousy towards Yukiko was dealt with in the infancy of their investigation last year. Still, the events of yesterday had succeeded in digging up neuroses thought left to rest.

 

_The Dragon Who's Discarded Womanhood_ , she groaned in her mind.

 

The latter part of the title she'd been saddled with for the Grand Prix had hit a nerve so raw she'd almost blown out poor Yosuke's eardrum in a fit of defensive rage.

 

_Jerk was probably laughing after that._ _He sure seemed to have fun the next day._ Chie unconsciously thumbed her nose at the thought of Yosuke's comments in the TV world.

 

She noticed a familiar row of houses as she passed by, illuminated by streetlights. _Maybe I should stop by Yu-kun's place on the way back…_

 

She grumbled, then took off down the path.

 

_Twenty more minutes! I'll ask for help if I'm still stuck!_

 

~

 

Yukiko loved her family. Most of the time, the idea that she had once wanted more than anything to be literally anywhere else would seem unthinkable.

 

It still didn't mean that she never got second thoughts.

 

“Mom, please! Stop it.”

 

“I'm just saying, dear. Your father and I were young once...” Ritsuko Amagi chuckled mirthfully.

 

Ever since the heiress had returned home, her family and the Inn's staff had taken the time to ask how her relationship with Yu was going and, while nowhere near embarrassed by her boyfriend, Yukiko was never the kind of person to brag. To be completely honest, she didn't have much worth mentioning about their private lives that wasn't also part of their secret double-lives.

 

“ _Actually, there were some nasty comments Yu made about me, but it turns out it was just the inner darkness of a robot high-school president_ _twisting_ _our_ _senses.”_

 

…

 

_When I put it like that, maybe I should tell them just to see their reaction…_ The mental image of the staff's gaping jaws and wide eyes didn't take long to drive Yukiko into a laughing fit all the way to her room. Her mother chuckled and rolled her eyes before she turned back to let her be.

 

_That's enough prodding for one night._

 

~

 

The silence of the Tatsumi textile shop had never sounded more pleasant to Kanji. The wares had been stowed away for the night and all that remained was to turn off the lights and turn in.

 

_No more real-life dreaming for this man!_ He thought, only for a knock at the door to halt him before he could get mid-stride. After about twelve seconds of wondering whether he should ignore it and go to bed anyway, a second knock came to muffle Kanji's reluctant groan.

 

_Dammiiiit…_ he thought as he stretched out his face with his hands. He trudged over to the door, hoping the guest wouldn't be long.

 

_Probably lookin' for ma._ _He'll turn tail when he sees me…_

 

Kanji's drowsy optimism proved to be short-lived as he slid open the shop's door to reveal a small blue-haired woman.

 

“N-Naoto!” he stammered, recoiling back at the sight of his teammate, a display Naoto Shirogane paid no mind.

 

“Good evening, Kanji-kun. I'm glad to have caught you still awake.” The detective spoke with her usual even tone and a polite smile.

 

“Oh? So, uh… what do ya– I mean... how can I help?” Kanji cursed his clumsier than usual dictation around the detective.

 

_A_ _t least Yosuke-senpai isn't here to-_

 

“Kanji-kun?” Naoto interrupted his thoughts with a quizzical look, leaning in ever so slightly towards him. “I was hoping to have someone join me in meeting Rise-san at the station, but you seem to be in need of some sleep.”

 

_Yeah, like that's happening now…_ Going to meet Rise wouldn't help much, either. The two were friends as much as any of the other team members, but the resident idol had a habit of getting under Kanji's skin by prodding him with – among other things – his longtime crush on Naoto.

 

“N-no, it's okay! When's the train get here? I'm sure you've got time to take a load off...” He blurted out as he retreated further into the house before shouting out a quick “make yourself at home!” and slamming the door to the kitchen behind him.

 

~

 

“We will be arriving at the Yaso-Inaba station in ten minutes. All passengers for Yaso-Inaba, prepare to disembark shortly.” Rise heard the monotone of the prerecorded message over her train car's tinny speakers. She checked her cell for any new messages from Naoto.

 

Nothing.

 

_Jeez… as if the trouble I gave Inoue-san wasn't enough…_

 

The reason she was so late in getting back to Inaba was her trying to explain and smooth over her sudden disappearance with her manager. She wasn't known for being one to spite her handlers, so coming up with a plausible excuse was difficult for her.

 

_I'll have to remember to ask Naoto-kun to come up with one._ She just hoped some of her friends had bothered to show up this late, as her train clacked along through the night.

 

~

 

Naoto sighed at Kanji's latest strange display, still taking him up on his offer and entering the shop. In all fairness, she could have gone down to the station by herself, but she was trying to not isolate herself from her friends. What Kanji had said in the TV world – or rather, what she had _heard_ him say – had made her self-conscious about her believing her teammates' company was beneath her.

 

As for Kanji himself, she knew he tended to act uncomfortable around her (for reasons she felt were his own and best left undisturbed), but he was the only one who was available at the moment.

 

Yu and Yukiko had been busy with each other, Yosuke and Teddie were at work, and the last time she had tried to call Chie's house, her mother had told her she had fallen asleep at her desk.

 

Either way, Kanji had plenty of time to get a hold of himself before she had to leave regardless to meet Rise.

 

~

 

“I apologize if this brings up unpleasant memories, Labrys. The Kirijo group has never really needed to change these stations when it was just Aigis.”

 

The recharge station in front of the group was no different than the one Labrys had broken out of on Yakushima all those years ago. The only difference was its twin next to it, likely installed hastily from a spare the tech department had lying around.

 

“No, it's alright Mitsuru-san.” she reassured the repentant CEO. While the Kirijo group's employees had committed atrocities against her, Mitsuru's eagerness to make it up to her, along with Aigis providing her with a sense of family, had earned her trust.

 

“Are you sure you want us to have the meeting without you? We can postpone it until you're ready.” Mitsuru asked Labrys as the latter took her place at the station, her cumbersome battleaxe discarded next to it.

 

“Nah, I'm good. I got a lot on my mind already, so I'll just go with whatever you decide.” She then smiled before turning to Aigis,

 

“Besides, I'm sure my sis can look out for me.” Her younger sister returned the expression, “I will make sure to keep your interests at heart, sister.” Aigis reassured her as Labrys closed her eyes.

 

With their newest teammate resting, Mitsuru, Aigis, Akihiko, and Fuuka left the lab and made their way to the conference room.

 

“Before we plan our next move, we should inform our other operatives about Labrys” said Mitsuru as she lead the group down the hallway.

 

Aigis nodded, “Agreed. While the Shadow Operatives have been understanding towards me, them discovering another anti-Shadow weapon on the team by themselves would likely hurt team synergy.”

 

“I'll inform Yukari-san, Junpei-kun, and Ken-kun once the meeting is done. Or should I let them know right away?” Fuuka asked her boss as they turned a corner.

 

“Thank you, Yamagishi, but no. I can inform them personally once we're done here.”

 

Akihiko interjected with a straight face. “Honestly, I'd rather we do this by ourselves. I don't want taking down whoever's behind this to be too easy.” Mitsuru sighed at her longtime friend's immodesty as the group entered the conference room.

 

“We know that whoever it is was capable of manipulating Labrys in the other world even though they were in ours. They also mentioned not having a Persona themselves, so at least the other world can be ruled out as far as looking for them goes...” Mitsuru summarized.

 

“In addition, they seem capable of not only controlling her, but also the hijackers from the plane when she was first kidnapped.”

 

Akihiko grumbled, “Shame none of them remembered anything that could give us a lead...”

 

“But why did they target Labrys in the first place? Were they using her to strike a blow to the Kirijo group?” Fuuka wondered. “If that was the case, then why put her in the other world?”

 

The idea of manipulation made a spark go off in Aigis' mind. “Mitsuru-san, the only other time we faced someone who could control people, it was Ikutsuki.”

 

The temperature in the room seemed to drop by a few degrees at the mention of the traitor's name.

 

“True.” Mitsuru kept herself composed at the memory of the man whose last act was murdering her father, considering Aigis had arguably suffered far worse at his hands.

 

Akihiko caught on to where Aigis was going, “He's gone, but he still had ties to Strega. You think someone like them might have had something to do with it?”

 

Mitsuru shook her head. “Impossible. Shorato committed suicide back in 2010, Sakai was found dead not a week after him, and Yoshino...” she trailed off.

 

Fuuka cleared her throat “Yes, she's in no condition to cause trouble either.”

 

“Still,” Aigis continued “there's no telling how many others like them Ergo Research may have had a hand in. Some may still remain.” Mitsuru gave a thoughtful nod to the idea, hoping her friend was not onto something. Still…

 

“Tch. If we don't know how to find anyone, we should just wait for them to come to us. Hasn't cost us anything so far.” Akihiko said bluntly. The unwitting trivialization of what Labrys had been through made Aigis and Mitsuru exchange glances.

 

“Akihiko, could we speak alone for a moment?” Mitsuru said more as an order than a request. Her and Akihiko's departure did little to ease the conference room's tense atmosphere.

 

~

 

“I understand you've been away for a while, but I thought you would understand the risks involved when our enemies get to strike first.”

 

“Huh? What's that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means that even though the mission succeeded, it would have been better if we had prevented Labrys' kidnapping in the first place.” Mitsuru pinched the bridge of her nose. “The Kirijo group has caused enough problems for me to fix. I cannot allow more to arise just to give you a reason to stay here!”

 

That last comment threw Akihiko for a loop. “Wait, what?”

 

“You left us for an entire year, just to get stronger, and you barely ever called!”

 

“Hey, I sent stuff back when I could.”

 

“Then I assume that the _endangered_ polar bear pelt from two months ago was from you?”

 

“… He started it.”

 

“ _Akihiko..._ ” Mitsuru was a hair's breadth from glaring.

 

“What? You put it to good use.” He shrugged, eyeing her fur coat.

 

“Akihiko!” She snapped her open palm in front of her friend's face, but her attention had been turned to the door of the conference room. The two of them could faintly hear terrified whimpering coming from beyond it.

 

_Yamagishi?_ The two shared a horrified look of realization.

 

_Aigis!_

 

The Emperor dashed to the door and flung it open to find Aigis, stiff as a rod, with all of her deadly fingers pointed at a terrified Fuuka. “Aigis?”

 

Aigis' own face then cracked into a horrified panic. “Mitsuru-san! I can't-! It's not-!” Her left arm faintly trembled, managing to inch towards the chair facing away from them at the far end of the conference table before snapping back to Fuuka's head, the cyan-haired girl flinching at the sudden movement.

 

“Show yourself!” Mitsuru commanded as firmly as she could, given the circumstances, only to be answered by a snide chuckle.

 

The tall chair spun around to show a sneering young man with short, blood-red hair, wearing a heavy olive-coloured jacket, and with a notable scar in the middle of his face in the shape of an 'X', big enough for the lower half to stop just past his nose. But what attracted everyone's attention was the hauntingly familiar remote control the youth held in his right hand.

 

“I don't think so, prez. Unless you want her splattered all over that fancy coat, the only one gettin' a show here is SHO!”

 

~

 

Yukari dumped her bag at her feet after locking the door to her apartment. Another day of solid shooting and PR scheduling for Featherman was over. She'd been booked for the next five months of conventions across the country, but her tireless work on set kept the public happy, as she'd set out to do from the start. Helping mankind find joy in life was her own life's goal for the past two years, ever since her and her friends' ordeal in the Abyss of Time had given them new purpose.

 

Her focus had been so single-minded that contact with her teammates in the Shadow Operatives had been rare at best. When Mitsuru first told her about her plan for the organization, Yukari had pledged her service on the spot, but ever since then, she had never been called for an assignment as part of the auxiliary force (where she was placed at Mitsuru's insistence), only social calls she almost never had time to follow through with. She did her best to not distance herself from her friends, exchanging texts with Mitsuru or Aigis whenever she had a spare moment, but the last time she'd been in consistently close proximity with any of them was back when she and Aigis shared a room in their third year of high school.

 

Running her hands through her shoulder-length hair, Yukari made her way for the shower. There was never enough time for it in the morning. Her stomach grumbled, and she sighed.

 

_Maybe I can call Mitsuru-_ _senpai_ _while I put something together…_ she thought without breaking her stride to the bathroom.

 

~

 

All things considered, Junpei Iori lead a pretty good life. He had a stable job he enjoyed, powerful friends, and a loving relationship with a beautiful girlfriend who had a budding career of her own.

 

Chidori had called him over for the night after her latest in a string of nightmares, only for her to spend the past hour asleep with her head in his lap. The two of them sat on her couch in front of the tv. Ever since he'd found out she was still alive, Junpei had been at her beck and call, with the kind of dedication that let them finally have a chance at a happy relationship.

 

Always ready to help her when she had questions.

 

And always on guard should her memory return.

 

The thought of that happening scared Junpei probably more than it should have. He had seen Chidori's amnesia as a blessing, considering the harsh life she had lived as a Kirijo test subject and a member of Strega. She was lucky her artistic talent had not been a price of her fresh start.

 

_Besides, who knows what would happen if she knew I was keeping secrets from her all this time..?_

 

Junpei shrugged off the hypothetical as he got up and gently scooped Chidori into his arms. He'd stay on the couch, but there was no reason she'd have to wake up sore in the morning.

 

~

 

Panting all the way, the white shiba puppy bounded across the lobby of the old SEES dorm, stopping to lick the hand that hung from the couch. The student council member attached to it had dozed off, with his other arm settled over his eyes. The youth was tall enough to cover all of the couch he lay across, which the pups took as a challenge to see how far they could climb him. The young pup barked to call his three siblings to their slumbering master. Together, the four piled on top of one another so that the runt could paw his way up onto the human's chest. With his unsuspecting face vulnerable to an affectionate licking.

 

“Wh-? Ack!” Ken just about threw the small puppy across the room with his rude awakening. The remaining pups barked up at him as he wiped his face clean with one hand, hooking the other's index under the runt's collar.

 

“Hiroki, I thought we made it clear. No jumping on the couch.” _Especially when Uncle Ken's trying to take a nap,_ He thought to himself as he lowered the small creature down to his brothers and sister. Ken turned his attention to the biggest.

 

“You'll take them back to your mom, won't you Ichiro?” Ichiro barked in agreement, earning him a friendly tickle behind the ears before he bounded off down the hallway and up the stairs all by himself.

 

Ken gave an amused sigh, hoping he'd have better luck with the other two. “Shinji, Miki, go on, and don't forget your brother,” he said, dropping Hiroki in front of them.

 

He slowly brought himself to his feet as they ran off, stretching his back out of the bad posture as the pups scampered off to their mother. After making sure enough of his vertebrae had popped out of stiffness, he checked his watch and frowned. _A_ _mi-san hasn't come back yet with Koromaru._

 

Ken's responsibilities on the student council forced him to leave Koromaru's walks to the underclassmen in the dorm, though SEES' former unofficial mascot didn't seem to mind the change in company.

 

“Arf arf!”

 

Ken heard the familiar barking through the dorm's thick door, only for the dog to slip through the crack just as it opened, easily escaping the tired grasp of the panting first-year girl who came after him.

 

“hah… hah… Sorry I'm late, Amada-senpai,” Ami Suzuki supported herself on her knees as the long-haired girl caught her breath.

 

“It's alright, Ami-san.” Ken reassured her as Koromaru left to join his family. Honestly, he didn't feel it was right for the other students to look up to a middle-schooler like him, regardless of him being on the student council. It was even worse with Ami, considering she had first come into the dorm caring for Koromaru's mate.

 

“I'm sorry for making you care for Koromaru as well,” Ken started. “I'd walk Yoko in return, but…”

 

Ami blushed at his offer, “Oh, don't worry about it Amada-senpai. I just wish my sister would stop by every once in a while to check on her…”

 

Last year, Ami's older sister had moved out of the dorm when she graduated middle-school, but left Yoko – the family's afghan hound – behind to not break up her and Koromaru's budding family.

 

“I don't think I could walk both of them without leashes,” Ami sighed “but if you're not busy sometime, maybe you and I could...”

 

“No.” Ken mentally smacked himself for his bluntness. “N-no, it's alright, Ami-san. I'll walk Koromaru when I can. I'll just... tell the president I need to cut down on activities.”

 

“O-oh… alright.” Ken's gut fell as the disheartened girl passed him, but he decided against following her. The legions of fangirls he'd unwillingly amassed would have put Akihiko's to shame, but they were still about as likely to succeed as his ever were.

 

It was inarguable that Ken had grown the most since their days in SEES, but Mitsuru's formation of the Shadow Operatives saw him still being treated with childish platitudes. The Kirijo refused to place Ken on the team, insisting that she wanted him to live a normal life, at least until he was as old as the rest of them were when they fought through Tartarus. Ever since that day, Ken had been using his activities as a way to hone his mind and body into the ideal asset for the Shadow Operatives. He even kept the Gungnir lance he used all those years ago as a constant reminder of the threat he swore to fight, his new height making it that much deadlier.

 

_I'll do my best to carry your weight, Shinjiro-san._


	2. ACT 1 Chapter 1: A Call to Action

**ACT 1**

 

**Chapter 1: A Call to Action**

 

Elizabeth felt the newly acquired power of the Wild Card thrum through every fibre of her being. Or was it the hope she now held that her goal was within reach thanks to this power? She paid it no mind and prepared to leave the Great Seal for the material realm once more.

 

Only for a hateful rumble to ruin the mood.

 

“How odd...” she mused, before turning to see a black mass. Two horned heads at the opposite ends of its four-legged body, both adorned with eyes made of red shadows fixed on the former attendant...

 

… and only about four feet tall.

 

Elizabeth almost cooed at the malformed dog of incarnate despair before drawing a death tarot card from her grimoire. The dwarf Erebus had barely any time to respond before it was stopped cold by the merciless grip of Thanatos. The savage Persona discarded the sword in its other hand and grabbed hold of the other end of the squirming pup.

 

“Ta-ta.”

 

Thanatos pulled until the helpless monster was torn in two as easily as a lump of dough, its remains letting out a feeble screech as they dissipated into nothingness.

 

Elizabeth snapped her compendium shut, dismissing Thanatos with a whimsical flourish. The beast was an efficient tool, as well as a reminder of the soul she sought to free, but in the end it was nothing more than a blunt instrument.

 

As she turned away from the seal once more, the former attendant saw the unthinkable at the edge of the horizon:

 

A tide of writhing blackness, slowly twisting into shape. The mongrel Thanatos had eliminated was just a loose splinter, but Erebus regaining so much of itself so quickly? It hadn't even been a day since she destroyed the monster at what she thought was its full strength. But at this rate…

 

“Oh dear...”

 

The woman in blue looked up at the chained seal, then back as an enormous horn began to poke out of the dark fog, slowly followed by one of Erebus' grinning faces.

 

Wasting no time, she conjured a titanic Megidolaon with her palm and lobed it at the growing Erebus before vanishing.

 

She hoped it would buy her some extra time.

 

~

 

Yukari stepped out of the bathroom clad in a bathrobe, wisps of steam sneaking out of the doorway. She ran her fingers through her hair to shake out the last few droplets that had endured the drying.

 

_I'll just say hi before I call it a night_ _,_ Yukari thought.

 

Without bothering to look at the clock, she took the phone off its charger and dialled Mitsuru's cell number as she made her way to the fridge. Scrounging the bare shelves for some of the rare groceries she had the time to get, she settled on a small pack of konnyaku. Not getting a response, her brows knit as she closed the fridge door, nibbling on a stick of the processed root.

 

“If you don't mind-”

 

Yukari spun around at the flighty voice, konnyaku still sticking out of her mouth and the still-dialling phone ready to be thrown at the intruder.

 

“Who-?! Wait...” the intruder's distinct look was still recognizable after such a brief encounter so long ago. The ghostly bob of white hair, her piercing yellow eyes, and her blue outfit was too distinct to be forgotten, even for someone in Yukari's colourful line of work.

 

“I remember you,” Yukari said finally. “You were in that room with Aigis after we fought… that _thing._ ” The memory of Erebus and what it represented clashed harshly with Elizabeth's jovial expression.

 

“Splendid! Then you'll know what's at stake.” Elizabeth said. “Seeing as this concerns him, I felt it would be best to seek you out first, but there is precious little time to explain.”

 

_Makoto?_ “Wait, what's at stake?!” The idea of the man she loved being in danger even after death sent Yukari into a panic, almost choking on the snack she'd bitten off. She pounded away at her sternum until the konnyaku passed through her throat.

 

Elizabeth seemed unaffected by the display. “Please try not to panic, we will need you, your friends, and others in order to stop this calamity.” She eyed Yukari up and down, the brown-haired woman just then remembering her current state of dress.

 

“H-hold on just a sec!” Yukari stammered as she made her way past Elizabeth to her bedroom. “I got just the thing!”

 

She shut the door behind her before eagerly digging her way to the back of her closet. Hidden behind the rails of clothes was a box Mitsuru had given her as a personal gift when the Shadow Operatives were first formed. Inside was a battle-ready replica of her Featherman costume, complete with a recreation of the prop bow she was familiar with.

 

Despite Mitsuru's insistence that Yukari stay as an auxiliary member, she still took the liberty of providing her with an effective uniform and weapon.

 

“Only in case of a home invasion, of course,” Mitsuru had rationalized to herself.

 

Yukari didn't even try to wrap her head around the Kirijo group being able to make a bow that could conjure and fire hard-light arrows, never mind that this was what Mitsuru commissioned _reluctantly_.

 

Still, Yukari was very pleased with the uniform. It had the same basic design as the Pink Argus sentai costume, (which she had grown accustomed to after fighting rubber-suited extras in it for months on end) with some practical changes. Most notably, the helmet had been discarded altogether, as it did nothing for her field of vision. The normally hot pink body of the suit was madea more discreet charcoal gray, with black gloves and boots, while the emblem on her chest was made white.

Aesthetics aside, the suit was armoured along the ribcage, while the fabric itself was reinforced with a thin mesh of kevlar aside from the joints. The thumb and little finger of her right glove had been removed to be more in line with a conventional archer's glove, while her utility belt held the space for the two evokers she carried; the one she was given back in 2009, and the one she had kept close since 2010.

 

She slipped into the suit faster than she'd ever done on set, partially due to the suit being much more accommodating for her figure, but mostly just her eagerness at this opportunity to prove herself again.

 

“Whatever's put him in danger, I'm not going to sit by and let it happen,” she said to herself as she zipped herself up and marched back into her living room.

 

“If you're quite done, it's time we convened with my previous guest.” Elizabeth's voice hinted no annoyance at their delay, long over the panic she felt moments ago.

 

In the blink of an eye, the two were gone.

 

~

 

“Oh dear… this is quite the complication...”

 

“Wait, what's wrong?” Yukari asked, finding herself in the vaguely familiar conference room at Kirijo headquarters, with a few of the chairs knocked over.

 

“Those I had encountered previously were here but an instant ago,” Elizabeth explained with a hint of bemusement showing on her brow. “Something, or some _what_ must have just taken them away just before we arrived.”

 

Yukari was too shocked to notice her companion's butchered language. “You mean Aigis and Mitsuru were taken prisoner? Where are they now?!”

 

Elizabeth furrowed her brows in apparent concentration. “Intriguing, it seems they were whisped away to where I saw them last.”

 

Yukari wasted no time and grabbed hold of the attendant's arm. “Well what are you waiting for? We've gotta go help them now!”

 

Elizabeth paused for an instant before walking straight through the door with Yukari in tow. “Not just yet. There is someone still here who will certainly be M.O.'d to join us!”

 

Even Yukari couldn't ignore that malaproper. “'M.O.'d'?”

 

The question caused the attendant to come to a sudden stop at a fork in the hallway, almost flinging her quarry into the wall ahead. She tilted her head in contemplation of what she meant to say.

 

“M.O...? Mo. Motor… Motive?”

 

Her face suddenly snapped into an explosion of elation.

 

“Motivated!” She took a sharp left turn and resumed her stride, Yukari now following from a safe distance, eager to avoid being accidentally flung into a wall.

 

~

 

Labrys felt a low hum at the back of her head as she slowly came to. Her optics flooded with white as she opened her eyes.

 

“Ngh!”

 

Yukari stepped in front of her, the dark shape providing some relief as her eyes adjusted, “Hey, are you alright? I didn't hit a wrong button or anything, did I?”

 

Labrys shook her head. “Nah, it's okay.” She then noticed the familiar face in the corner of the room. “Elizabeth-san? What's goin' on?”

 

“I'm afraid your companions have been taken away by some ne'er-do-well,” Elizabeth said with her naturally whimsical tone. “But that is only half our troubles, it seems, so we'd best be off as soon as can do.”

 

Elizabeth's news made Labrys surge forward, only for the ports on the chair she was still plugged into to pull her back down.

 

“Whadda you mean?! Someone just walked in and took Aigis and Mitsuru-san away? We gotta find them now!”

 

“Hey, calm down, we'll find them,” Yukari said, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder before sliding it down the back of the chair to find the releases. “I'm Yukari Takeba, by the way. I'm a friend of Aigis.”

 

Feeling her body's restraints give way, she turned back to the archer. “You know my sis?”

 

As she undid Labrys' last restraint, Yukari tried to suppress remembering the last 'sister' of Aigis she came across.

 

“Yeah. Mitsuru-senpai, Akihiko-senpai, and Fuuka-chan too. We used to work together.”

 

Labrys' piqued interest was interrupted by Elizabeth throwing her battle axe to her like a piece of plywood, handily catching it in her left hand.

 

“With introductions out of the way, our next companions should be found at your old stepping grounds.”

 

As Labrys rose out of the chair, she exchanged glances with Yukari, who just shrugged.

 

“Steppin' gr-?”

 

And then they were gone.

 

~

 

Before heading to bed, Ken had decided to finish off the milk that was left in the dorm's fridge. His binging on it in his youth seemed to have already paid off, but he still drank it copiously, more out of habit than obligation by now.

 

Turning away from the fridge, Ken put the glass to his lips and glugged away, turning to the kitchen table…

 

“Salutations!”

 

… before spraying his drink all over the face of an uninvited guest.

 

Ken sputtered as he tried wiping off the droplets of milk that had dripped down to his black uniform, averting his eyes from Elizabeth's beaming face.

 

“My, such a thirst for battle already! Am I to believe you spray the essence of your last conquest as a sort of challenge?”

 

Yukari poked her head up behind Elizabeth as she began “Um, Elizabeth-san...?”

 

“Yukari-san?” Ken had a hard time recognizing his old teammate with the two-year difference and her still-outlandish body armour.

 

Still, Yukari was far more surprised by the teenager in front of her.

 

“Ken-kun, is that you? When did you get so tall?” She asked before shaking her bafflement off. “Never mind! We need your help. Mitsuru-senpai and the others have-!”

 

“I'm in,” Ken interrupted. His face showing nothing but unwavering certainty, which gave Yukari pause.

 

“Wow… I mean… You're sure?” She was expecting to have to convince Ken to get back into the fight, thinking that if she was given some warning ahead of the reunion, she'd have spent some time trying to convince him to join up.

 

_I guess I'm not the only one with something to prove…_

 

“Just let me get my-” Ken had already begun to make his way to the stairs before being interrupted by a familiar bark from a floor up. Following a series of rapid 'thunk's, Koromaru came down the stairs carrying Gungnir in his mouth, laying it at Ken's feet before bounding into a kneeling Yukari's open arms.

 

“Thanks Koromaru,” Ken smiled as he wiped off the gnawed end of the spear.

 

The dog proceeded to yip energetically while looking directly at Yukari as she petted him.

 

“Uh… he's sayin' he wants to come with us.” Labrys finally made herself known from the back of the room. The two familiar faces had taken up Ken's attention until that point, but it didn't take long for him to put her familiar appearance and understanding of dog-speak together.

 

“You can understand him too, Labrys?” Yukari asked, standing as she brushed the dog's white fur off her dark armour.

 

The long-haired girl was still getting used to meeting new people, and still had to work through the sensation that came with suddenly becoming the focus of attention. “Oh, yeah. In fact I think my sis mentioned gettin' that from me...”

 

Ken knelt down before the dog, who sat dutifully as Yukari had gone over to Labrys. “Are you sure, Koromaru? What about your-”

 

The dog barked pleadingly, only for Ken and Yukari to turn to Labrys for translation.

 

“He's sayin'... he wants to stay with his family, but at the same time... he knows that he has to help his friends. I think he's tryin' to be a good role model.”

 

Yukari knelt down to scratch behind Koromaru's ears. “You're a family man now, Koro-chan? That's something I'll have to see when we get back.”

 

The Shiba barked in approval.

 

Elizabeth then grabbed hold of Ken's arm, flinging the poor boy over to the rest of his teammates. “How wonderful that you speak so surely of victory! However, there is still one of your fellows we will need.”

 

As the attendant raised her grimoire, Yukari's raised an eyebrow. “One more-?”

 

Then a realization hit her.

 

“Oh no... No, please tell me you don't mean-!”

 

~

 

“Junpei!” Yukari quietly hissed to her goateed friend who was currently snoring, sprawled along the couch.

 

SEES' resident goofball stirred for a moment.

 

“Mph... Chidoritaaaa... Let's get the jetpacks readyyyy...”

 

Yukari turned to Ken, then Labrys, only for the two to shrug at a loss. Koromaru jumped up onto Junpei's chest and started licking him...

 

“Ooh... You're cuddlier than usual, baby...”

 

...which proved to be about as effective.

 

Yukari snorted in frustration. She wasn't going to risk her friends'lives to avoid giving Junpei a rude awakening, and proceeded to give him a light smack on the forehead.

 

“Wake up!” She hissed as Junpei jolted awake, his eyes darting around the darkened room in search of his attacker.

 

“Huzzw-! Yu-!” Junpei then immediately lowered his voice down to a whisper. “Yuka-tan?! Ken-kun?! Koro-? What the hell are you doing here? How did you find out where I was-?” His attention then turned to the two strange women in the background.

 

“The hell are you??”

 

Wasting no further time, Ken kneeled down to Junpei's level, took a firm hold of him by the shoulders, and looked him dead in the eye.

 

“Junpei-san, listen to me: Mitsuru-san and the others have been kidnapped. Elizabeth-san's helped Aigis and Makoto-san before, and Labrys is a new Operative. We need you to come with us. We need your help.”

 

After taking a few bug-eyed seconds to process the information, Junpei let out a simple, stunned “Woah...”

 

The scruffy-looking man took a few deep breaths, then shook himself out of his stupor for a more articulate follow-up. “You... alright. Just gimme a sec. I gotta leave a note,” he said as he scanned the coffee table for a pen.

 

Ken pulled a spare out of his uniform's jacket pocket, along with a notepad, handing them to Junpei. As Junpei sketched out ' _Don't worry. I'll be back before you know it. -Junpei_ ', Yukari turned her attention to the ajar door, then to the familiar-looking sketch of a younger Junpei hanging on the far wall, barely visible in the moonlight.

 

“So...” she began. “You two are doing okay?”

 

Capping the pen and handing it back to Ken, Junpei grinned. “Sure are. What about you, Yuka-tan? Anyone-..?”

 

Yukari shut down the conversation by bluntly turning to Elizabeth. “We've got everyone. Now are you gonna tell us what we're up against?”

 

“Oh, nothing you have not faced before,” she replied evasively. “More than that is best shared when we are reunited with our docks...” She faltered. “piers... yes, peers.”

 

Yukari sighed in resignation as Junpei threw on his shoes, jacket, and trademark cap.

 

“Soo... Where we going?” he asked before the group vanished.


	3. Chapter 2: The Fog's Familiar Face

Chapter 2: The Fog's Familiar Face

 

“Yukiko, are you decent?” The Amagi matriarch called to her daughter through her room's door. “I'd like to talk seriously about Narukami-kun.”

 

Yukiko rolled her eyes as she gave up on getting ready for bed. Slipping her cardigan back on, she called out “Just a moment!” before making her way to the door.

 

She gripped the side of the sliding door, but in the instant where her arm began to pull, every light went out, leaving nothing but darkness illuminated by moonlight and washed in red. Yukiko's attention, however, was fixed on the featureless, black coffin in front of her.

 

The coffin where her mother was standing the instant before.

 

“M-... mom?” Yukiko mumbled at a complete loss.

 

When it came to fear, Yukiko's record of invincibility didn't come from her iron will, but from her overly-sensitive funny-bone. She had demonstrated a habit of picking up any trace of silliness from the legions of Shadows her and the team had fought, uncontrollably laughing in the face of what more often than not had left Chie struggling not to shake.

 

But the coffin before her, it was too plain. Nothing ornate or ridiculous about it. Just the black wood so imposing and unfamiliar you could swear it was stone, and the fact that the unfeeling monolithseemed to be all that was left of Yukiko's mother.

 

The shock hit her like lightning, and her scream echoed into the red night.

 

~

 

“Hello?” Rise called out to the darkened car ahead of her. The train had stopped dead just a few minutes away from the scheduled arrival, and her car was devoid of other passengers.

 

Not wanting to wander off, the idol peeked out the window to get her bearings. She was greeted by the sight of Inaba off in the distance, with a curious red tint to it.

 

A tint brought on by moonlight passing through theblood-red fog consuming the town.

 

_This can't be right,_ Rise thought. _We got rid of the fog for good! Ever since-_

 

A knock from the door behind her, and her own surprised shriek that followed, broke Rise out of her thoughts. She stepped slightly closer to the windowless door, only for the knocking to return, followed by a woman's voice.

 

“I can't come in unless you open!”

 

Rise hesitated before she recognized that voice. Creeping towards the door, she gripped the handle firmly, took a deep breath, and flung the door open to reveal a young woman with chin-length black hair and blueish grey eyes.

 

“Marie-chan?!”

 

Marie seemed no less surprised than Rise.

 

“Red...” she hesitated. “... ish?”

 

Rise ignored the nickname and looked her fellow traveller up and down. She looked exactly as she had remembered her. Even with their last meeting being over a month ago, Rise's memory of her stayed quite vivid thanks to the one-sided rivalry she fuelled during the investigation.

 

“What are you doing here? We haven't seen you in months!”

 

Marie answered with “I was away.” in a tone thatRise couldn't tell was meant as 'obviously' or 'mind your own business'. The idol sighed in frustrationand turned back to the car window overlooking the town.

 

“Whatever's going on, it doesn't look like this train's gonna start moving again any time soon. But at least we're close enough to get home on foot.”

 

The lingering red fog prompted Rise to address the elephant in the room. “Marie-chan...” Rise started. “That fog in the distance... Does it have anything to do with Izanami?”

 

Marie shook her head. The fragmentation of the Shinto goddess was what had allowed her to befriend the Investigation Team in the first place.But now her and Izanami were one and the same, and she was just as lost as Rise was when it came to the red fog.

 

“Still,” Marie said finally “whatever it is that's going on, there has to be a reason why it doesn't affect Persona users.”

 

Rise raised an eyebrow at that claim. “What do you mean?”

 

Marie casually pointed over her shoulder into the car she had come from, with a number of coffin lids visible from over the seats.

 

“Oh my god...” Rise blurted out, earning her a slightly bemused glance from Marie before bolting towards the exit.

 

“Wait! Where are you going?” Marie called out to her as she gave chase.

 

“Senpai and the others are still in town,” Rise replied, stopping just short ofthe car's ladder. “I have to help them!”

 

Despite Rise being the only member of the Investigation Team to neverfight directly, her support abilities had saved each member more times than any of them cared to remember. Her being specifically targeted for kidnapping just the other day spoke volumes of how important she was to the rest of the team. Marie had seen this firsthand during the Hollow Forest, when she was in a rough state of mind. For her friends to be facing such a phenomena without her would end badly before too long.

 

“Then let's go,” Marie said plainly, slipping past Rise to the ladder.

 

Rise was surprised for only a moment before shrugging to herself and following her out.

 

“So...” She began as she climbed down. “What've you been doing? We thought you went to stay on the other side.”

 

As Rise hit the ground, Marie answered “I needed to grow,” earning her a puzzled look. The goddess began to elaborate as the two moved into the fields between them and Inaba's shopping district.

 

“I'm supposed to watch mankind and grant its wishes,” she began as Rise pushed through the tall grass ahead of them. “Honestly, it's that duty that let me meet all of you.”

 

Rise felt a twinge of worry at that, since part of _that_ duty was linked to the fog that seemed to be making its return tonight.

 

Marie continued. “I thought the best way to find out that wish was do what…” she scrunched her face in mild frustration. She felt it difficult to explain the metaphysics of the different selves Izanami used before they were reunited. “... the old me was sent to do: Become one with the people.”

 

Rise took a break from forging ahead to look back at her companion. “So you took a trip into town? Why not just walk around Inaba?”

 

“More people,” she explained casually. “And it had the right job.”

 

That offhand comment took Rise by surprise. “You what?”

 

“People spend so much of their lives working, I had to see for myself what it was like,” she said, her words stinging of melancholy. “See if I could make it better.”

 

Rise loved her job, but she would bethe first to admit it had its downsides, even ignoring the crazier fans. If Marie could makeeveryone's lives easier through their jobs, even if only a little...

 

“Wow,” she said as she turned to face her, their dire situation forgotten for a moment. “That's... great, Marie-chan! So what job did you apply for?”

 

Marie pursed her lips together to answer, only for her to freeze, her ears perking up under her hair. Rise walked towards her in concern.

 

“Marie-chan? What's wrong?”

 

This time her question was answered by all too familiar-sounding giggling. The idol spun around to see a woman strut towards them, the tall grass brushing aside as she walked.

 

“Well well! It looks like Rissette's colluding with the competition!”

 

“What the-?!” It had her body, her voice, her face barring the iconic yellow eyes. All signs pointed to Rise being face-to-face with her Shadow again, but she knew that wasn't possible. Ignoring that she had never seen Shadows outside the TV world, she had faced her own Shadow what felt like a lifetime ago, and it had been with her ever since, from Himiko to its current form as Kozeon.

 

“You're not my Shadow,” she declared confidently, like how she imagined Naoto would catch a suspect in a lie. “You're just a fake like that announcer from the Grand Prix!”

 

“No...” Marie murmured, taking the defiant wind out of Rise's sails as her grey eyes locked with the doppelganger's yellow ones.

 

The redhead turned to her. “What? What is it?”

 

The goddess' eyes widened in surprise, perhaps even fear. “It doesn't make sense but... it's tied to you, just like your Persona!”

 

The Shadow Rise mock-pouted at the revelation, “Awww, ya had to spoil the surprise!” it whined before perking up into a more sinister giggle.

 

Rise's jaw went slack. “But... how?! How can I still have my Persona when my Shadow's right there?”

 

The Shadow derisively snorted. “Oh, please! You think facing just _one_ part of yourself makes you perfect? There's _way_ more where that attention whore came from!”

 

Within Rise's soul, Kouzeon flared in offence.

 

Shadow Rise began to emanate the familiar violet aura as the grass around it was pushed flat, itsmouth twisted into a sadistic grin. “Killing you is curtains for me, but it'll be worth it just by how much senpai _won't care_!”

 

Its arm snapped out at the real Rise. “ **Ziodyne!** ”

 

Rise recoiled in fear as a bolt of electricity was sent her way, only for a sleeved arm to shoot in front of her and push her back. She opened her eyes to find Marie standing in between her and her Shadow, her brow furrowed as she struggled with the lightning she had caught in her other palm.

 

Marie turned her head slightly back to Rise. “Get back, Reddish.” She warned before glaring at the Shadow. The energy in her hand grew with a crackling pulse before she let it loose. “Eat this!” she called out as she unleashed a burst of Hot Lightning at the enemy.

 

~

 

“And the E-liz has landed!” The short-haired attendant declared, arms outstretched as her companions dispersed into the intersection flooded with red fog. Junpei started coughing before noticing it had no ill effects on his breathing, and Koromaru shook himself to try and keep the moisture away.

 

Labrys looked around at the buildings, trying to find something recognizable before giving up. “It's no use. Even if this fog wasn't messin' up our view, I ain't been to this part of town.”

 

Yukari let out a long breath before turning to Elizabeth. “Okay, so where do we go from here?”

 

“My priority is to find the Wild Card who dwells here,” Elizabeth said. “It is up to you to find your compatriots.”

 

The archer's eyes widened at what looked like their abandonment, but Labrys stopped her before she could go off on a tirade.

 

“It's alright, Yukari-san,” she said as she held Yukari back by her shoulder. “The guys who live here, I know they're gonna help us out.”

 

Yukari looked at Labrys before calming down and nodding. “Still...” Yukari started. “Could you at least point us in the right direction to find Mitsuru-senpai and the others?”

 

“But of course!” Elizabeth answered. “I can tell a Wild Card is staying put in...” She stuck her right arm outwards, facing northwest. “... that direction. There are two others not far that way,” the attendant said indicating the road ahead with her closed grimoire.

 

Yukari wasted no time in taking command. “Alright, Labrys and I will go get Aigis. Ken-kun, you, Koro-chan, and Junpei will go after the other two.”

 

Junpei protested, but not for what he may have years ago. “Hey, wait a minute! That only covers three of 'em!”

 

Elizabeth countered, giving Junpei's outburst no mind. “It seems the fourth one is already being attended to by one of the local Persona users. They should be safe even if Shadows attack them. Toodles for now!” She waved as she walked down the south road into the fog.

 

“Huh?” Junpei stuttered.

 

“Of course...” Ken muttered. It's not like he would have been needed if Shadows weren't involved. He motioned to Koromaru as Junpei and the dog moved off in their assigned direction.

 

“Hey, Junpei!” Yukari called out to him, the group pausing to turn back at their counterparts.

 

“Be careful out there, okay?”

 

Junpei gave a small smile at the goodwill before the two groups went their separate ways. “Yeah. You too, Yuka-tan.”

 

As Yukari and Labrys followed the directions given to them, the two struck up a conversation.

 

“So, Yukari-san...” Labrys hesitated. She had questions, but she wasn't sure if now was the best time to ask them, or that the woman she'd just met wouldn't find them intrusive. “You n' my sis used to work together, right?”

 

Yukari was caught off guard by the sudden question, but saw no harm in answering. “Yeah. Before the Shadow Operatives were a thing, we were in...” she stifled a chuckle at how silly it all sounded out loud. “... pretty much a secret school club for Persona users. Mitsuru-senpai had it set up to stop something like this that was happening a few years ago. The fog's new...” she added to try and dissuade Labrys' unease. “... but I guess that makes it worse, huh?”

 

The anti-Shadow weapon appreciated Yukari's efforts, but tried to get her back on track.

 

“Don't worry about it, Yukari-san. I was wonderin' more about how Aigis was back in the day.”

 

“Oh.” For the slightest instant, it seemed as though Yukari had hit a mental roadblock, before her expression returned to normal.

 

“Well, she joined up in the summer a couple of months after I did. We ended up becoming friends by the end of the year and spent third year as roommates.”

 

As the two approached the entrance to Inaba Municipal Hospital, Yukari added, almost to herself “Still not as lively as you.”

 

Labrys didn't hear her as she pried the automatic doors open.

 

~

 

Naoto had all but given up on Kanji returning from his refuge in the kitchen. The tailor's incoherent blathering that could be heard through the door had been going on for what felt like hours.

 

_Rise-san's train must be coming soon..._ Naoto thought as she reached for her cell phone.

 

Just as her fingers grazed the surface, the lights in the house went dark. The blackout was punctuated by the crashing sound that came from the kitchen, followed by a pained groan.

 

“Kanji-kun, are you alright?!” Naoto called out, not wanting to intrude on her friend's privacy.

 

“Hrk! Yeah...” Kanji replied through the door, more flustered than pained. “I'm good...”

 

Returning to check her phone, Naoto was shocked to discover that even her phone had gone dead. She sighed at the phenomena taking place at the worst possible time.

 

Then she thought to herself, _The last time I checked, it was almost midnight. And the power failure..._

 

In her research of Mitsuru Kirijo on behalf of Public Safety, she had come across information on what was known as 'The Dark Hour'. _At midnight, all electronic devices stop_ _ped_ _functioning, and only Persona-users_ _we_ _re able to_ _experience_ _it._

 

Her eyes widened.

 

_If that report was correct, then it's possible that Shadows-!_

 

Her thoughts were interrupted as the Tatsumi household's doors were dramatically thrown aside, only for a yellow-eyed Kanji to slide into the store on his knees, brandishing a rose between his teeth.

 

“Nao-doll...” the Shadow Kanji pleaded at Naoto's feet, with such a dramatic flair she could have sworn she heard violins playing. “... my precious cinnamon roll. Come away with me, and we'll take on _the man_ together!”

 

Naoto's jaw was uncharacteristically agape at the display, not even able to stutter as the real Kanji slammed the kitchen door open, charged the Shadow, tackled it out of the house and into the street. All through the ensuing street brawl, Kanji ranted and raved about the Shadow making the worst mistake of its “short-ass life” by breaking into an old woman's home, but Naoto didn't even stop to consider the status of the Tatsumi matriarch. The gears in her head were too busy turning as she stood in the centre of the textile shop's storefront, with her inactive phone in hand, trying to understand the meaning of what she had just witnessed as red fog started to seep in.


	4. Chapter 3: Returning Foes and Lingering Woes

Chapter 3: Returning Foes and Lingering Woes

 

Yu woke to the sound of metal hammering away at asphalt. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, the wild card dragged himself off of his futon and to the window through sheer force of diligence. Reaching over his couch, he pulled back his curtains just as he would every night before checking the Midnight Channel.But once he was greeted by the red view, the leader of the Investigation Team was wide awake and wasted no time in throwing on his Yasogami uniform jacket and snatching up his sword as he dashed out of his room and down the stairs.

 

Barely stopping to slip on his shoes, Yu flung himself into the foggy street. Once he'd calmed down long enough to hear metal footsteps up the road, he drew his sword and steadily made his way towards the noise.

 

It wasn't long before Yu was greeted by the source of the footsteps: Shadow Labrys. Identical to the one Teddie had defeated only yesterday.

 

The Shadow glared at the young man with a tinge of betrayal. “You... It's all your fault! You're why they won't leave me alone!”

 

Yu was at a disadvantage. Ignoring the fact that he had no idea what the Shadow was referring to, he had also never encountered a Shadow-self without also having its host in the same room.

 

The leader gave a mental shrug before taking the diplomatic option.

 

“What do you mean? Who's after you?”

 

The Shadow's tantrum failed to subside. “Them! You tricked me into betraying them!”

 

“I don't understand!” Yu tried in vain to calm the Shadow down. “How did I-?”

 

Yu was interrupted by the sounds of many more footsteps closing in from behind the Shadow. It wasn't long before a dozen chassis emerged from the fog, some marching with some shambling stragglers in the back. Their blank, featureless faces all focused on the Shadow Labrys.

 

“Labrys...” a sword-wielding pursuer droned out. “ _Betrayer._ ” it spat before the group turned its attention to Yu.

 

“Betrayed.”

 

The blank ones then surrounded both Yu and the Shadow Labrys. Yu had seen these models before, as part of the nightmare the original Shadow Labrys had made manifest. Those androids were the same featureless templates he had seen broken and maimed, either dangling by a broken limb or being carried into an incinerator off in the distance.

 

Yu quickly put two and two together.

 

“So, these are the others. The ones who didn't make it...” he said as plain as day.

 

“That's right!” The lead Shadow yelled at the stone-faced youth. “I had to kill every one of 'em cause of those Kirijo bastards! And you got me to go crawling back!”

 

Yu had no time to form a counter-argument before a lance-wielding blank charged him from behind.

 

~

 

Rise had kept a safe distance as her Shadow and Marie traded blows, with the Shadow taking a severe thrashing, even as it managed to keep going.

 

“So persistent...” Marie grumbled after unleashing another round of Hot Lightning, her breathing starting to get ragged as she shook stray sparks off her firing hand. The Shadow took a knee after the latest onslaught, only to look up with a psychotic smirk.

 

“Ohhh... It won't be long now...” The Shadow sneered. “How about a spin on one of your classics? _”_

 

Marie's confusion was met by the sight of the red fog seeping in from behind Shadow Rise, as if on cue. As it crept along the ground, energy seemed to course through the Shadow's being, bouncing back up on its feet as if the fight had only just begun.

 

The black-haired girl's brows knit as the fog made its way towards her.

 

_Okay. Fine..._ she thought. _Let's see how much she likes it._

 

Marie readied herself to take in the fog. She had spent over a month as a receptacle for all of the fog that had appeared during the last year. Back then, it was her purpose. She was certain this would have been no different.

 

She didn't realize how wrong she was until it was too late, as she fell to her knees and let out a cry of pain.

 

“Marie-chan?!” Rise started to run towards her, only for Marie's arm to violently snap out at her. Rise froze in shock, unsure if she was simply telling her to keep away or about to use that lightning on her.

 

“St-stay back!” Marie panted, clutching at her chest with her other arm.

 

The fog felt caustic to every fibre of her being. It suffocated and burned her from the depths of her chest to her skin, and the foreign sensation caused her swimming vision to just see a reddish-black blob laughing at her pain.

 

“Persona!”

 

While the onslaught Marie felt was still there, the edge that she was certain would have killed her before long began to fade away. Still drained, she mustered up the strength to look over her shoulder to see Rise a fair distance from her, with Kouzeon holding its visor over her eyes.

 

“Come on, Marie-chan! Whatever the fog's doing, I think I can give you a boost to keep you going!”

 

Marie gave Rise a thankful smile as she let Kouzeon's work slowly patch her up.The Shadow gave a disgusted snort at the scene.

 

“Oh, this is rich! You were so jealous of her, sooo eager to get one over on her, and now you're acting all buddy-buddy just so you can hide behind her!”

 

Marie recoiled. “Wh... what?”

 

“That's not-! I...!” Rise faltered trying to dodge her accuser.

 

“Not that it did you any good,” the Shadow sneered. “You both lost in the end! You were so clingy, he settled on that-”

 

An unexpected spark caught the Shadow in the eyes. As it recoiled in pain, Marie rose to her feet, panting heavily from the strain.

 

“I don't... know... what you're talking about...” she said as the area began to thrum with energy. “But your yapping's... gone on _long enough!”_

 

Marie conjured a massive sphere of magic into a Megidolaon above the Shadow's head, before slamming it down with a fierce cry. The blinding attack completely engulfed the Shadow, which barely had time to shriek before it was annihilated in the flameless explosion. Once the dust had cleared, leaving nothing but a small crater where the enemy was, Marie's panting slowed until she gave out a tired gasp as she lost consciousness.

 

“Marie-chan!” As Kouzeon dissipated, Rise sprinted to catch Marie as her legs began to topple. The idol managed to reach her before her head hit the ground, not willing to wait and see if a goddess could be harmed by something as simple as blunt head trauma.

 

Rise looked over the body of her outed rival, reassured to find that she was at least breathing. She summoned Kouzeon again, this time kneeling down to both of them, to help rejuvenate Marie while she thought on what to do next.

 

_Senpai and the others need help! But I can't carry Marie-chan all the way into town like this, and I can't just leave her here..._ She thought.

 

_Our best chance is to meet up at Junes like we always do. I wonder..._

 

Rise closed her eyes in concentration.

 

“Yosuke-senpai? Yosuke-senpai, are you there?!”

 

~

 

“Ack!”

 

Yosuke had just gotten over the pain of dropping a package of frozen cans on his foot after the sudden blackout had taken him by surprise. Suddenly hearing Rise in his head didn't serve to make his night much easier.

 

“Yosuke-senpai! Is that you?!”

 

“Rise-chan? How are you-?”

 

Yosuke's confusion only served to irritate Rise.

 

“Ugh! The town's covered in red fog, and somehow there's Shadows here in our world! Marie-chan and I just fought one off.”

 

The young man groaned angrily at the string of revelations.

 

“Gah! Dammit, it's always something!” His mind then came to a halt. “Wait, Marie-chan? I thought she was-”

 

“Gone. I know.” Rise interrupted. “Listen, senpai. I'll try contacting the others once we're in town, but we're gonna need our headquarters to be safe for when we meet up.”

 

“Got it. Me and Teddie will lock up the entrances and make sure no Shadows have snuck in.”

 

Teddie gasped as he poked his blond head out from behind a row of freezers.

 

“Inaba attacked by Shadows?! Yosuke! How could you let them get past the _bear_ imiter?”

 

The cheery Shadow's habit of throwing Yosuke under the bus was old hat at this point. However, like so many other times, Teddie's antics did nothing to improve the situation. Yosuke called out to his adoptive brother.

 

“Alright, Teddie. If you're so keen to find Shadows, why don't you check out the offices and storage? Cause I'm not leaving you here just so you can eat the merchandise,” he chimed as he walked off to the sporting goods department. To Teddie's credit, he had matured significantly since he had first entered their world, but Yosuke wasn't too keen on taking chances with him at a time like this.

 

As Yosuke walked out of the frozen food aisle, he heard Rise chuckle in his mind as she disconnected.

 

~

 

As Marie's eyes fluttered open, she caught a glimpse of a passing blob in her vision. She let out a small groan as she opened her eyes and looked up to see Rise looking over her, the two of them shadowed by Kouzeon's telescope head.

 

“Marie-chan...” Rise gave a sigh of relief. “You had me worried for a bit. How are you feeling?”

 

The raven-haired girl took a look at her surroundings. The grass around them had gone back to its original shape, save for the small crater where Shadow Rise once stood. The fog had not passed, but it had at least not gotten worse than the level it was when she had passed out. Whatever Kouzeon had done with her, the fog felt nowhere near as bad as it used to, only feeling like a rash across her skin.

 

“I'm... fine,” she said finally. “Thank you.” She staggered slightly as she tried to get out of Rise's arms and onto her feet.

 

Noticing her struggle, Rise put Marie's left arm over her shoulder and she brought them both to their feet.

 

“Come on,” she said as she started to move. “we have to hook up with Senpai and the others.”

 

“Wait.” Marie brought up her hand as she anchored Rise in place.

 

“The Shadow said you were jealous of me... over Yu?” There was no anger in her voice, only confusion.

 

Rise looked down at her feet, silent.

 

“I don't get it...” Marie probed. “Yu was already with Red. Why worry about me?”

 

Rise took in a deep breath, the fog's particles swirling away from her mouth as she let it out.

 

“I guess...” the idol started, looking ahead. “I just saw Senpai hanging out with a beautiful girl who wasn't even part of our team and...” she gave a lost shrug. “I guess I got defensive.”

 

“Yu and I are just friends,” Marie reassured her, even if a bit quickly. “Just like you and him.”

 

Rise didn't seem convinced with that idea. “Come on,” the girl gave Marie a teasing nudge. Anyone who hadn't known her would have thought she was trying to undermine her. “you've never thought of being anything... _more_ with him?”

 

“No,” the goddess said bluntly, waving off the probing Rise's elbow had done along her ribcage. “He helped me when I had nothing. He helped me create memories with all of you. Why would I take away something he already has?”

 

Rise sighed, half out of defeat, half out of embarrassment.

 

“You're not the only one he helped. When he first saved me from my Shadow, I started to feel something. But then, he helped me find myself, went along with that lie that we were going to run off and get married...” She trailed off, her mind returning to the moment that she knew he didn't want her like she wanted him.

 

“Hey,” Marie broke Rise out of her bitter memory, smiling to herself. “Yu helped anyone he crossed paths with.” She gave Rise a knowing side glance. “Even if they weren't sure they wanted it. He deserves to be happy with who he wants.”

 

Rise took Marie's bit of self-deprecation with a laugh before the two started their walk to town in earnest.

 

“Yeah...” Rise admitted as the pair walked into the grass. “Yukiko-senpai's a lucky girl.”


	5. Chapter 4: Lovers' Strife

Chapter 4: Lovers' Strife

 

After being locked in a state of sheer panic, Yukiko had finally started to calm down. The long-haired heiress had managed to lean against the wall next to her bedroom door to gather herself, but still averted her eyes from her mother's coffin.

 

 _Calm down..._ She told herself as her heart hammered away in her chest. _This has to be some kind of trick... I just need to-_

 

The unwelcome sound of a creaking floorboard broke Yukiko out of her thoughts. The paces were a slow gait, but hauntingly familiar, and headed her way. Yukiko began to move towards the opposite end of the hallway, hiding herself behind the corner as the footsteps grew louder. It eventually got to the point that she could hear the sound of shoes on the floor, definitely in the hallway. The footsteps stopped, and Yukiko held her breath, praying that whoever it was wouldn't get any closer.

 

Just as her lungs began to strain, the footsteps stopped, followed by a slow, but strangely familiar exhale.

 

_Yu-kun?!_

 

Whoever it was, the sound of their steps along the wood floor continued, this time fading until Yukiko could tell that they were at the far end of the hall.

 

 _I need to know..._ Yukiko thought, breathing shallowly through her nose. She peeked her head around the corner to see Yu in his uniform, with his sword at the ready. Even with her fantasy of being rescued a thing of the past, Yukiko's heart soared.

 

“Yu-kun!” she called as she came out from behind the corner.

 

In that instant, the man at the end of the hall came to a sudden stop, snapping his head back to the source of the voice.

 

The yellow eyes of a Shadow shot to Yukiko's like a bloodhound.

 

“Found you.” Its cold, growling voice resonated like she had heard so many times before from so many others. No trace of the warm reassurance or calm leadership she remembered, just a monster in the shape of the man she loved.

 

The Shadow Yu began to march towards her, the tip of its sword hovering just above the floorboards.

 

Yukiko bolted for the kitchen, hopeful that she could lose the Shadow and make her escape. Striding through the inn's hallways, she made sure to avoid the creaky floorboards, which also served as a warning for how close the Shadow Yu was behind her. Concentrating on moving forward, she keptherself from instinctively summoningSumeo-Okami, whose presence was now begging to be let out to defend her master. If even one stray flame hit the building, then the Inn would risk ending up reduced to a smouldering ruin, her family stripped of their livelihood.

 

 _Once, I might have wanted an excuse like this..._ She thought to herself. _But I can't throw it all away now!_

 

She had to escape this Shadow Yu, and find the real one.

 

~

 

Like a lot of people, Yukari hated hospitals. The fact that this one was nearly empty save for the odd coffin brought on by a hellish phenomenon tied to most of the horrible things in her life didn't help one bit. With every step she took, the squeak of her boots on the linoleum tiles echoed through the empty hallways. The silent, haunting atmosphere was the type of thing she had not paid much mind while living alone, with her schedule too tight for her to really mind her surroundings.

 

She and Labrys had finished searching through half of the hospital's ground floor before Labrys stopped dead in her tracks, holding up her companion.

 

“Labrys?” Yukari asked.

 

“I'm hearin' something...” she answered. Her body still rigid before she started to slowly creep towards a pair of double doors at the far end of the hallway.

 

Yukari stopped to notice a single door adjacent to the larger ones, above which read the words “Operating Theatre”. Labrys pushed through the main doors, only for the noise she was following to come through clear as day for Yukari.

 

She recognized it was someone crying.

 

She recognized it was _her_ crying.

 

“Labrys, wait!” Yukari called out as she ran through the doors to her, only for the two of them to be greeted by a staggering sight.

 

Cuffed to an iron cross was Aigis, or at least what looked like her. Yukari noticed some differences from what she had remembered of her former roommate, even ignoring her ribbon being replaced by a tie.

 

 _Has it really been that long since we've seen each other..?_ Yukari asked herself, only for the crying that drew them here to stop and draw her attention to the floor.

 

From a safe distance in the entrance hallway Yukari saw herself, back when she was seventeen, kneeling at the crucified, unconscious Aigis. Whatever it was, it was exactly as she had remembered herself, from her almost shaggy hair to the pink cardigan.

 

Along with the Quintessence Bow she used to carry back then, gripped tightly in its right hand.

 

“You...” It said venomously, its voice reverberating in a way Labrys found all too familiar.

 

“It's all your fault!” Shadow Yukari spat as it rose to its feet. “He died all cause you couldn't kill _one_ Shadow!”

 

Aigis remained unresponsive to the Shadow's tirade.

 

“You were too weak to do what you were made to do...” it then proceeded to conjure an arrow out of purple smoke in its left hand. “So there's no point in you being here. You never should've been _anywhere_.”

 

Readying the arrow, the Shadow raised the bow, aiming at Aigis' head. Just as the bowstring became taut, Yukari ran out into the middle of the theatre.

 

“Stop!”

 

The Shadow turned to face its host, its face a mix of bewilderment and disgust.

 

“Are you serious?” It asked. “You think we'll ever get over what she did?”

 

The question, rhetorical or not, took Yukari by surprise.

 

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she said quickly.

 

“Psh...” the Shadow scoffed. “Don't try to bullshit me. You're a wreck. You could work day and night for the rest of your life and it still won't fill in what's missing. What _she_ took! What _she_ drove you to!” It jabbed its bow at Aigis behind her.

 

“She even got the best souvenir, and the best she could give you was that consolation prize” it sneered, pointing to the evoker Yukari had in the holster on her right hip. Yukari was speechless.

 

“... Who... who are you?” She said finally.

 

The Shadow gave a toothless grin, slowly warping with resentment.

 

“I'm you, and you're me,” It declared. “I'm everything you've kept bottled up for two years of silent suffering.”

 

Yukari stood frozen, her eyes wide.

 

“You try to tell the world, even yourself, that you've moved on...” Shadow Yukari condescendingly went on. “But deep down, all you've done is _cry_ about daddy, and Makoto, and Aigis, and how _everything_ bad _always_ happens to _you!_ Boo-hoo, Takeba!”

 

“No...” Yukari said, the onlooking Labrys uncertain as to whether she was being honest, or just in denial. “I promised to leave that behind.” Her eyes hardened. “I'm nothing like you anymore! You're just a bitter Shadow that's wearing my old life to mess with me!”

 

The Shadow seemed unphased by Yukari's outburst, its expression almost nauseous in how unimpressed and judgemental it looked.

 

“If I'm bitter, _Yukari Takeba_ , it's cause _you_ are,” it asserted in a simmering tone. “If I'm selfish and horrible and a weak waste of skin, it's cause _you_ are. I'm not just a normal Shadow with your face, I wasn't made just now to get to you! I. Am. You. And I always w-!”

 

The Shadow's breaking speech was interrupted when it found a jet-powered greataxe buried in its torso, with Labrys' iron grip on the haft.

 

“I'm sorry,” she said with genuine sympathy as the Shadow's situation began to sink in. “I know whatever made you had to be some serious pain, but I ain't gonna just stand by n' wait for my sis to get hurt.”

 

Shadow Yukari answered Labrys with a snort, givingYukari a hateful sneer before dissolving into nothing.

 

~

 

To Yosuke's relief, there didn't seem to be any Shadows trying to take advantage of the equipment in the sporting goods department, and the dressing rooms had been just as devoid of Shadows. The lack of a terrified Teddie screaming from the opposite end of the store was another good sign. All that was left was to check the entrance.

 

_Looks like Junes is 100% Shadow-free!_

 

Smirking, Yosuke strode out of the women's department, secure in the belief that this Shadow invasion was going to be smooth sailing.

 

Until he turned to see a Shadow no more than five meters away.

 

A Shadow that looked like Chie.

 

Yosuke instinctively sucked in a breath at the surprise, but if the Shadow noticed him, it didn't show. Its attention seemed to be fixated on a long, yellow dress that was on display. The Shadow looked almost hypnotized by the flowing sundress. Until it spoke.

 

“Would that work, Yosuke?”

 

The young man jumped at the sudden address.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Would you pay attention if I wore that?” The Shadow clarified, not turning its gaze from the dress.

 

Yosuke was at a loss. From as far back as the encounter with her Shadow, he knew Chie was jealous – to an extent – of Yukiko's femininity, and – to an even lesser extent – the attention that came with it.

 

But attention from _him_?

 

“I- uh...”

 

“Why should I bother?!” The Shadow spat, turning to Yosuke and fixing him with a contemptuous yellow scowl. “All the other girls never even tried! Yukiko, Marie, Rise, even Naoto! You drooled over all of them, but not me! Not Chie the tomboy!”

 

Shadow Chie's rant was punctuated by angry stomps towards Yosuke, with him too shocked to step back.

 

“Why is that? Come on, Yosuke! Tell me, why don't you look at me the same way?! _Why_?!”

 

“Because of me.”

 

Both Yosuke and Shadow Chie turned to face the new voice, with its owner walking out of the frozen food aisle. Yosuke recognized her right away. From her tired-looking eyes to her wavy, silver hair.

 

“Saki-senpai...”

 

But whatever this was that stood before Yosuke and the Shadow Chie, it had nowhere near the patience for Yosuke that he remembered Saki Konishi having.

 

“It's pathetic, really...” the Shadow scowled at Yosuke, eyeing him up. “you never getting over me even after finding out how I really felt.” She turned to Shadow Chie and smirked “He was even willing to kill another man for me! It's like he needed to prove his devotion. No way were _you_ gonna change his mind.”

 

“Shut. Up.” Shadow Chie fumed while grinding its teeth, only for Saki to ignore it, dramatically clutching her hands to her chest.

 

“'You wouldn't understand, Chie! Someone _important_ to me died!' I didn't even think of you like a brother!” She railed at Yosuke until he finally snapped.

 

“I know!”

 

Both Saki and Shadow Chie's gazes were fixed on him as he caught his breath.

 

“I know, dammit...” he said finally. “I know you don't feel the same, and now you never will... and I don't care.” Yosuke began to walk slowly towards Saki.

 

_If this is her Shadow, then maybe this can give Saki-senpai some peace?_

 

He stood within arms reach of her, their eyes locked. “I'll never stop caring about you.”

 

Saki, or whatever she was, gave a small smile as she brought her hand up to his cheek.

 

“Awww... that's sweet, Hana-chan. But it's really not me you need to worry about.”

 

Yosuke's brain tripped over itself, only managing a confused “Huh?”

 

Saki's grin took on a more sinister shape before nodding in the direction of Shadow Chie “It's her.”

 

Her face then exploded into violet smoke, spreading until her hand against Yosuke's cheek had vanished.

 

Yosuke was taken out of the shock by the sound of ragged breathing. He turned to see Shadow Chie with a primal look of betrayal, rage, and jealousy. Furious breaths passing through tightly clenched teeth.

 

“ _Hanamura!!_ ”

 

The Shadow let out a familiar burst of a purple aura, pushing Yosuke back as he shielded his eyes. He looked up to see the Shadow replaced by a dragon. The winged beast was covered in thick, brown scales along its back, with darker green along its underside. It stood hunched on all fours like the ugly-looking European ones, not the majestic, serpentine ones that the real Chie seemed to identify with.

 

Each seething breath now illustrated by plumes of frost puffing out of its nostrils, the draconic Shadow Chie let out a thunderous roar, making the glass in the nearby freezer doors shake violently, before advancing towards Yosuke.

 

“Oh crap!”

 

He didn't need his Persona to tell him to run. He took off like a madman down the frozen food aisle, the dragon giving chase.

 

~

 

Chie felt only a passing sense of familiarity with the Shadow in front of her. A second-year she'd caught grinning to himself when he overheard Yu was leaving back in March, probably thinking he was now destined to win the second round of the Amagi challenge. Haraedo-no-Okami didn't seem to think much about his odds as she diced the Shadow into mincemeat before following up with four others.

 

“Man, this is getting kinda messy.” Chie heard the running commentary from a few of the more recognizable Shadows.

 

“Psh. Exactly.” A Shadow of her former friend, Takeshi, sniped from the tree it was leaning against. “She's always hiding behind someone else if she screws up, so no need for her to think first.”

 

Trying her best to ignore it, Chie sent Haraedo charging through a trio of thuggish-looking Shadow copies, knocking them away before vanishing into puffs of smoke.

 

“See? Just ask those guys.”

 

“Aw... don't be so hard on her, man.” Shadow Yosuke joined in the riffing, squatting as it observed the action like a wildlife documentary. “That thing with the kid was one of the only times she got to fight for _justice_.”

 

Shadow Takeshi cocked an eyebrow at the backhanded defence. “What, you're taking a shine to her? Your loss, man.”

 

Shadow Yosuke grinned as Chie was mopping up the rest of the horde. “It's only fair to cut her some slack. I mean... even if she wasn't dumb as rocks, she's too gutless at heart to be a cop.”

 

Chie whiffed a kick to a familiarly dead-eyed Shadow at that comment.

 

Shadow Yosuke let out a short cackle before putting his hands to his mouth to get the girl's attention. “Admit it, you would've just stood there while I threw him in!”

 

The heckling didn't seem to get enough of a reaction for Shadow Takeshi, who called out with a harsh “Hey!”.

 

It was answered with Haraedo throwing her sword through its head, sticking to the tree as the Shadow disintegrated.

 

Shadow Yosuke whistled at the outburst. “Deadly force for a guy giving you shit. Tsk tsk! Not the best mindset for an _agent of justice_ : protector of the weak.”

 

Chie turned to the last remaining Shadow, her enraged expression showing a visible amount of hurt.

 

“Y'know what I think?” Shadow Yosuke asked, not waiting for a reply. “I'm pretty sure you don't care about any of that shit unless you get to beat something up.”

 

The Persona-user couldn't even manage a defensive 'shut up!' as the Shadow stood up and began to approach her. Its face twisted by a grin and false curiosity.

 

“You sure you don't wanna be a cop _just_ so you can get your own gun?”

 

Chie's eyes went wide at that slander.

 

“Now where does _that_ sound familiar..?”

 

The grin never left the Shadow's face, even as an enraged Chie charged it with a livid roar.


	6. Chapter 5: Wasted Years

Chapter 5: Wasted Years

 

By this point, Yukiko had endured Shadow Yu's game of cat and mouse for almost twenty minutes. No matter how little noise she made, or how certain she was she had stayed out of sight, she never seemed to be able to give her pursuer the slip.

 

In spite of it all, she had still managed to reach the inn's lobby, and her exit. Only a few seconds' sprint between her and the door. Precious seconds she could hear she didn't have. Wasting no time, she ducked behind the hollow front desk, curling up inside against one of its walls just as Shadow Yu's footsteps entered the room.

 

The Shadow marched briskly into the lobby, stopping just past the front desk. It scanned the room for signs of its prey before letting out a harsh exhale. Was it frustration? Acceptance? Yukiko couldn't tell as she focussed on holding her breath once the Shadow briskly turned to face her hiding spot. It slowly made its way to the front of the desk, so that the only thing between Yukiko and her pursuer was a few inches of wood. The Shadow slowly paced in front of the desk, with Yukiko's breath slowly dwindling. As it returned from the far end to Yukiko's hiding spot, it stopped. Her lungs screaming for air, Yukiko could feel the Shadow's gaze looking right at her through the desk.

 

But after what felt like an eternity, the Shadow only gave a small snort before heading back the way it came, probably to continue its search. Yukiko waited a whole five seconds of silence before allowing herself to take a desperate gulp of air. Panting heavily, she struggled not to topple over as she climbed out from under the desk, not pausing to catch her breath as she ran to the door and out into the town.

 

_Chie... Yu... everyone..._

 

_I hope you're alright._

 

_~_

 

“Aigis? Aigis!”

 

An inaudible whirr began inside Aigis' head, her eyes fluttering open to see Labrys kneeling over her, accompanied by what appeared to be...

 

“Yukari-san?”

 

Her former roommate nodded, tears welling in her eyes.

 

“Aigis...” Yukari began shakily. “I...”

 

She gulped trying to compose herself, but it did nothing to stop a dam breaking in her. She threw her arms around Aigis and broke down in a way she hadn't done in years.

 

“I'm so sorry!” She sobbed into her friend's chest, leaving Aigis confused but gently placing a hand on her shoulder. “It's not your fault! It never was!”

 

“Yukari-san...” Aigis' voice helped stem the emotional tide that Yukari had flowing out of her. Looking into her eyes, the archer took a series of deep breaths before finally calming down.

 

“Ever since the Abyss of Time...” she began again, shakily. “I...” she clammed up. “I've been thinking about what I tried to do. I didn't know at the time, but... If you hadn't stopped me, he...” she swallowed. “He would've died for nothing! I almost ruined what he died for just cause _I_ can't move on...” Yukari gave a long breath, exhausted by her breakdown.

 

“Sometimes at night,” she mumbled sadly “I think about what happened, what I almost did... No matter how much I want to move on, I just can't...”

 

Yukari looked away from Aigis and Labrys as her confession made her even more disgusted with herself.

 

“You aren't the only one.”

 

Yukari's brow raised in surprise as she wiped her tears off on her gray sleeve.

 

“Even with his power...” Aigis turned her eyes away from her friend, even as Yukari's gaze returned to her. “I haven't used anything besides Athena for the past two years.”

 

“Why?” Yukari asked, slowly getting to her feet before offering her hand.

 

“It's... difficult to say.” Aigis searched for the right way to get her meaning across. “Back in the Abyss, every time I summoned something that was his; Orpheus, Susano-o, Odin...” her mouth thinned into a hard line “it always felt... unnatural.”

 

“You mean cause it used to belong to Makoto?” Yukari asked, her hand still outstretched.

 

Aigis sighed as she accepted the hand. “I honestly don't know. It could be the power itself, it could just be me. Deep down, maybe I feel this power should never have passed to me, or anyone else.”

 

Pulling her friend up, Yukari gave a wry smile. “I guess we never really got over him, huh?”

 

Aigis nodded with a grave expression. “It seems so. Perhaps we never will.”

 

Yukari worriedly let go of Aigis' hand, only for the blonde android to give a comforting smile.

 

“But that shouldn't tear us apart again. We're still friends, aren't we?”

 

The charcoal-suited archer gave a relieved laugh. “Right.”

 

“Hey, sis?” Labrys finally spoke up now that the moment had passed. “I'm glad to see you're alright n' all. But, uh...” her red eyes shifted uncomfortably around the scenery of the operating theatre. “Could we get outta here soon? Somethin' kinda hinky about this place...”

 

Yukari was surprised to find the new operative seemed to have a phobia not too different from her own.

 

“You don't like hospitals, huh, Labrys?”

 

“Yeah, I guess...” the blue-haired android answered uncertainly as the group started to leave. “I dunno. It's almost like this weird _deja-vu_...”

 

~

 

“Of all the places, they had me tied up outside a tofu shop!”

 

Ken and Junpei shared a look of bewilderment and amusement respectively. Finding their old upperclassman tied to a cross half-naked hadn't given them the best impression after two years, but with every passing second they spent with him, the more they got the idea that their friend – who had previously earned a reputation for being level-headed and disciplined – had seriously let himself go.

 

“Uh, Akihiko-senpai?” Junpei asked as the irate boxer stormed through the suspiciously unlocked door to the tofu shop.

 

_I mean, it's a small town, but isn't that a bit out of place?_

 

“Come on,” Ken sighed, taking Junpei by the arm with Koromaru in tow to follow their senpai. “Let's catch him before he gets into trouble again...”

 

The front room of the tofu shop was cluttered by wares, giving the rest of the group time to catch up to Akihiko as he fumbled through the racks arranged through the darkened storefront.

 

“Akihiko-san,” Ken held his old teammate back to slip ahead of him “wait up. We don't know what's back here. You don't think it's strange the front door to this place was unlocked?”

 

Akihiko shrugged off the concern. “It's the country,” he said dismissively. “That's just how it is.”

 

“Still...” Ken continued as they reached the door in the back that lead to what looked like the owners' living room. The young man carefully pried it open with the tip of his spear, even more unsettled that it too was unlocked.

 

But what was on the other side of the door made the group breathe a collective sigh of relief; a crucified Mitsuru in a conspicuously vacant room.

 

Ken was caught off guard for a moment until he caught Junpei gaping at their bound leader. Akihiko pushed past them both to free the hostage.

 

“Mitsuru!”

 

An almost silent creak and a trace of movement in the corner of his eye set off alarm bells in Ken's head.

 

“Akihiko-san, wait!” the youth called out as he ran to keep the boxer from falling victim to a trap.

 

Only for that shifting shadow to leap out at him with a familiar face and send him flying through the outer wall.

 

Akihiko heard his own voice snarl behind him.

 

“Bah! Mediocre!”

 

The boxer felt a tiny sun start to grow in him. The climax of his unending search for strength and the means to test it seemed to be standing only a few feet behind him. Smirking, he turned around to see a hunching mirror image of himself.

 

“Now that's more like it...” he smirked to his Shadow, which gave him only a stoic, single-minded glare in return.

 

“Junpei,” Akihiko addressed the only other Operative in the room, Koromaru having bounded through the Ken-shaped hole in the wall in search of his partner. “This one's mine. Go... stand guard outside or something.”

 

Junpei did a double take before grumbling and leaving, shutting the door behind him.

 

“Just make it quick!” his resigned, muffled voice was heard through the door as he walked away.

 

Shadow Akihiko grunted angrily at its counterpart, appearing even more insulted as he entered into a ready stance.

 

“This is so beneath me...” the Shadow muttered as it cracked its knuckles. “Come on then. Unleash your fist, _hero_.”

 

The Shadow then charged Akihiko, the doppelganger coming in for a low blow which the original handily dodged. He then countered with an uppercut, barely missing the Shadow's chin as it leapt back. Akihiko put up his arms to block the head-on blow, followed by a flurry of punches to wear away at his defence. The shirtless boxer, feeling his guard was about to break, shoved his opponent's fist – along with its owner – back across the room.

 

“I gotta admit...” Akihiko panted with a satisfied smirk. “All that travelling and searching seems like a waste of time, now. The only real challenges seem to always be here!”

 

“So you finally get it...” The Shadow answered with a satisfied glint in its golden eyes. “Worthy opponents and the strength that comes from crushing them is the _only_ true purpose in life!”

 

As the Shadow spoke, it began to walk towards Akihiko, grinning and completely defenceless. Its arms slowly raised, leaving itself open to a free hit, which Akihiko accepted, lunging at his Shadow.

 

“My thoughts _exactly!_ ” he said as he threw his fist forward, into his opponent's face.

 

But to his surprise, Akihiko's momentum didn't stop at the contact, as his fist passed through the Shadow's head as easily as a sledgehammer through a window, dissolving along with the rest of it by the time he hit the ground. Whatever confusion Akihiko felt didn't last more than a moment.

 

“Not as tough as they look, huh? Shame.” He muttered as he turned his attention to the crucified, unconscious Mitsuru.

 

“Mitsuru?” He called out to his friend, with her not showing any signs of reaction. “Mitsuru, can you hear me?”

 

Seeing her begin to stir this time, he approached her cross, about to touch the restraints around her arms before catching movement from the shadowy corners of the room.

 

A catch that came too late.

 

“ _Niffelheim_!”

 

Akihiko then found himself sliding along the floor to the far end of the room, encased in an immobilizing glacier.

 

 _I... ice..._ His thoughts swam as he tried to keep himself from succumbing to his frozen prison. _That voice!_

 

Mitsuru's own Shadow emerged from the edges of the room, behind its crucified host and holding her red, high-frequency rapier.

 

“Unacceptable.”

 

The Shadow's icy yellow eyes looked at the frozen Akihiko with the same dissatisfaction a strict parent would show towards a poor grade on their child's report card. The boxer himself saw the chilling gaze unnaturally clearly through the ice block, feeling like his static prison was crushing inwards on him.

 

Shadow Mitsuru, standing next to its host, turned its attention to her while still glaring right at its victim.

 

“Do you see this?” it asked Mitsuru. “ _This_ is the waste that happens when you don't keep your assets on a short leash.”

 

The Shadow finally turned away from Akihiko, moving behind Mitsuru's cross. It ran its armoured fingertip along the edge of the red blade, with the sword emitting a barely audible, high-frequency hum.

 

“There is only one fitting punishment for your failure, Mitsuru Kirijo...” Shadow Mitsuru decreed, pulling its host's sword back as Akihiko saw her begin to stir.

 

“Execution.” The Shadow uttered with a tone that could only say 'good riddance' as it drove the rapier forward, past the cross, and – with a choked crunch – through Mitsuru's back and out of her abdomen.

 

“NO!” Akihiko did his best to scream as the Kirijo leader was jolted awake, blood flying out of her mouth and onto the human popsicle in front of her. The boxer tried again and again to break free of the ice, with no success. Like trying to start a stalled car, Akihiko could only struggle fruitlessly as he watched Mitsuru suffer.

 

Seemingly irritated that its victim had survived, Shadow Mitsuru – its grip still on the sword – placed its free hand on the cross' vertical beam. Ice began to spread across the iron until even the manacles were consumed by ice. Mitsuru – blood seeping between her clenched teeth – only reacted when the blade through her torso shifted slightly, as the Shadow removed its hand only to replace it with its armoured, high-heeled boot on her back.

 

“Fine then.” The Shadow hissed. “Die on your knees.”

 

Mitsuru felt a push, then a strain as her frozen manacles struggled against her wrists. Unwilling to draw things out, her Shadow gave one solid kick with her heel, shattering the cross into chunks of pure ice and sending Mitsuru crashing to the ground in a heap, crying out in pain as her sword violently left her body.

 

Shadow Mitsuru slowly walked over to her struggling host, crushing a larger shard of ice underfoot. Her white coat stained red from her wound, Mitsuru rolled over onto her back, looking up at her Shadow, either as one last-ditch attempt at defiance or trying to get in between it and her helpless friend.

 

Her body and mind too strained by her injury to summon her Persona without assistance, Mitsuru's left hand fumbled to her evoker, which she kept more out of habit than as something she had expected to use. Midway between the draw and Mitsuru putting the pistol to her head, her Shadow flicked the evoker aside with an almost casual swipe of her stolen rapier.

 

Standing over her, the Shadow pointed with its empty hand at the disarmed evoker, which promptly exploded, sending its useless components outward from a slowly expanding, pistol-shaped ice crystal that stopped at the original's size.

 

“Worthless.” Shadow Mitsuru looked down at its dying host, fighting to keep her eyes open. “You could never have rectified the Kirijo's wrongdoings. Allowing this apish grunt to leave your service, even wasting resources on him, groveling at old victims like it means anything...” It pointed the rapier straight at her face. “Father must be utterly ashamed of you.” Mitsuru's already pained face looked even more broken as her Shadow moved the tip of her sword further down.

 

“No matter...” The Shadow said, stopping the blade just above Mitsuru's heart.

 

“He won't be any further disappointed once I send us to meet him!”

 

Shadow Mitsuru pulled the rapier back in preparation to strike. Mitsuru's eyes fluttered shut before the end.

 

The split-second sound of ice cracking caused the Shadow to look up just before Caesar burst out of his host's prison, freeing a roaring Akihiko to lunge forward and swipe at the would-be executioner, pushing it back.

 

Just then, the door to the rest of the shop opened up again, revealing an out-of-breath Junpei.

 

“Akihiko-senpai, what's-?!” He looked at the scene in front of him before Shadow Mitsuru turned tail and fled out of the house through the back door.

 

“Go after her, Junpei! Now!” Akihiko barked as he shambled his way to Mitsuru's body. Junpei darted after the Shadow with little more than a nod and a familiar 'get back here!' that Akihiko didn't even notice.

 

“A...” Mitsuru rasped, her eyes barely open. “Aki... hi... ko...”

 

“Don't try to talk, Mitsuru.” Akihiko put his arm on her shoulder. “I'll fix you up in no time! Caesar!”

 

The emperor Persona appeared, raising its globe and releasing a rejuvenating Diarama

 

into Akihiko.

 

“Damn it...” Akihiko muttered under his breath as he tried again. _Must_ _'ve_ _gotten_ _out_ _of practice_ _on my own_ _._

 

This time, Akihiko mentally steered Caesar's energy towards Mitsuru. Unfortunately, the only effect appeared to be stopping the bleeding, as Mitsuru let out a groan of searing agony as she began to come out of shock.

 

The boxer's panicked gaze switched between Mitsuru's face and her supposedly-closed wound.

 

_Come on... Come on!!_

 

Akihiko summoned his Persona over and over again with even weaker results – like flinging the contents of a water bottle to a parched man just out of reach – until Caesar could no longer materialize. Looking into Mitsuru's pained, fearful eyes, he grabbed hold of her hand, with the other nursing the breach in her black body armor.

 

“Just hold on, Mitsuru...” he pleaded softly. “Please... just hold on a little longer...”

 

_If I can't save you after all this, what was it all for?!_


	7. Chapter 6: Gathering

Chapter 6: Gathering

 

Ignorant of the happenings further down the street, Kanji's pursuit of his own Shadow lead him to the Tatsuhime Shrine. Aside from how he had forced the fight outside, the flamboyant Shadow had managed to dodge the onslaught of its half-furious, half-flustered host without much effort, leading him up and down the northern half of the district before retreating into the supposed dead end.

 

“Nowhere to run now, ya-!” Kanji stopped dead in his tracks as he saw Naoto's Shadow as well, with his own hiding behind it almost like a child hiding behind an adult from a fight it started. Just like his own, Kanji noticed this Shadow Naoto wasn't wearing some outlandish outfit (such as, too much or _too little_ clothes, like their last appearances), it was just her, save for the yellow eyes looking down at him from atop its perch on one of the twin lion statues. (though Kanji had to admit, there was still something familiar in the way it looked at him)

 

“Now look what you've done,” Shadow Naoto chastised Shadow Kanji. “You've brought a stray mongrel back with you! I would have thought that ridiculous fox not being here was a sign of good fortune, but _no_. You felt the need to try your luck with that emotional cripple.”

 

Shadow Kanji, in an almost Teddie-like display, gave a dramatic coo.

 

“Oh, don't be like that baby...”

 

_This is too damn weird!_ Kanji thought to himself, his face warped in confusion and horror as he watched his Shadow flirt with Naoto's so openly.

 

“Well,” her Shadow conceded “I suppose you could have done far worse...” It then levelled its revolver at Kanji's face.

 

“Better a hopeless romantic than a blind hothead like this one. That type of behaviour will only get someone killed.”

 

Kanji flinched as he heard the gunshot, saw the muzzle flash. But his supposed demise was interrupted by the Shadow's bullet harmlessly bouncing away mere inches in front of his nose.

 

“Kanji-kun!”

 

The real Naoto came running from behind the young tailor, stopping beside him with her own pistol drawn.

 

“I apologize for the delay...” She said, seemingly hiding her face from Kanji with the brim of her hat. “Perhaps it would be best for you to deal with your own Shadow while I handle mine?”

 

“N-no, it's okay! I can handle it!” Kanji insisted as he summoned Takeji Zaiten to his side, looming over the pint-sized Shadow as it tried to flee into the bushes.

 

“There seems to already be an incident at Rise-san's.” Naoto commented, taking aim at Kanji's fleeing Shadow before shooting it in the back. “Let's deal with this quickly.”

 

The downed Shadow barely got to its feet before Yamato Sumeragi was sent dashing after it.

 

~

 

“Rise and shine, _boy_.”

 

Ken came to, shifting at the sensation of his aching, wall-breaking back, only to find a familiar spearhead pointed by a familiar face at his own. Ken instinctively looked around for his own spear, finding it flung to his right just out of reach, even if his Shadow didn't have his arm pinned under its foot.

 

“It all comes back to this, doesn't it?” Shadow Ken mocked his pinned host. “The grown ups get slaughtered, even when you know it's _you_ who should be taking the bullet. It's just how it goes, right?”

 

Ken struggled to escape, only for the Shadow to hold its spear even closer to his face. “It's still what you want, isn't it?”

 

The young man said nothing, holding an outburst of denial behind his grinding teeth.

 

“I mean, you've wanted to be dead for a long time,” Shadow Ken taunted “but dying in their place... well, at least then it would have meaning.”

 

It kneeled down to Ken's face, flashing a conceited, toothlesssmile. “Sorry, _kid_ , but not everyone gets the blaze of glory.”

 

If the Shadow ever intended to stop its gloating and get on with driving its spear through Ken's skull, it never got the chance. Upon finishing its sentence, a charging Koromaru leaped at Shadow Ken, sending it reeling away from the original as it tried to fight off the mauling animal.

 

“Good boy” Ken whispered as he got to his feet.

 

The boy reached for his spear, his grip tightening on his weapon. In a way, he admitted, his Shadow was right. Ever since the night when Shinjiro Aragaki, the man he had wanted to kill for so long, died taking a bullet for him, Ken had felt deep down that he was unworthy of being saved. He shouldn't have been a burden that caused the death of someone he'd learned too late was a good man.

 

_Still,_ Ken thought to himself. _That doesn't mean I don't still have a job to do._

 

Brushing himself off, he ran to help Koromaru finish off his latest chew toy.

 

~

 

Through the foggy suburbs of Inaba, the sound of merry humming was heard, punctuated by the occasional bravado and cut-short screams of whatever unlucky or overconfident Shadows that crossed Elizabeth's path.

 

_Tralala... No inn for my guest to rest._

 

Her cheery rhyming continued as she skipped along, casually obliterating any Shadow she came across in her search for the resident Wild Card.

 

_Tralala... Feral dogs and bearded pests..._

 

Before too long, the attendant picked up the sounds of the first battle she hadn't taken part in tonight. Upon reaching the source of the noise, she found her target, Yu, holding his own against a Shadow onslaught from all sides. The lead Shadow, identical to the one Elizabeth had thrown into a rage the day prior, lashed out with its massive battleaxe, only for Yu to fluidly leap out of the way while at the same time guarding for an incoming blow from a mace directed at his head.

 

“Oh my...” The Shadows' heads snapped in unison towards the observant Elizabeth, who had already taken the time to sit on the pavement with her knees excitedly pulled to her chest, like a youth taking in a simple fireworks display from atop a grassy hill.

 

The fight's unexpected audience gave Yu enough time to go on the offensive.

 

“Maziodyne!”

 

Yu crushed the Chariot tarot card immediately after it formed above his hand, summoning an ethereal Thor at the centre of the ring of Shadows. The masked Persona brought his hammer down, sending a storm of electricity surging out at his master's enemies. The Shadows twitched wildly in short-circuiting agony, with Thor's dispersal only having them wobble unsteadily in a paralyzed stupor. Not one to let an enemy Shadow – let alone an entire battalion of them – linger, Yu brought out his favourite Tower card.

 

“Hassou Tobi!”

 

Yoshitsune, his red armour contrasted by his eerily pale face, drove both of his swords into the asphalt, sending an octagram of its slashes outwards, hacking away at the Shadows until one by one they exploded into their usual base globules. The last casualty was the supposed drone leader, supporting itself with its massive greatsword before succumbing to the samurai's attack. Only the Shadow Labrys remained, with Yu uncertain as to whether it could still fight or was just lingering to spit out its last words.

 

It appeared to be neither as the blue-haired Shadow shambled toward Yu, its axe dragging behind in preparation for a weary swing. Yu, himself pushed to the brink of exhaustion, could tell it was past being a threat to him and lowered his sword. Maybe he could try reasoning with it, see if he could give it some means of absolution like the Shadows he had faced in the TV world.

 

That idea was nipped in the bud when Shadow Labrys was spontaneously blasted apart.

 

Yu turned to Elizabeth as she stood up from her place, her gloved hand outstretched as if she had simply waved the Shadow goodbye.

 

“Elizabeth-san? Why did you-?”

 

“As real as that Shadow was,” the attendant interrupted Yu. “It serves no purpose to any Persona-user.” Pulling her grimoire from parts unknown, she beckoned the Wild Card towards her. “Now please, we must marshall our forces for the next act, shall we not?”

 

Before Yu could respond, the two heard the sounds of crashing off in the distance. Yu turned north, to the source of the noise to see a familiar golden fist crashing down from the heavens onto the floodplain.

 

“Chie!”

 

Yu barely paused to gather himself before running off to help his friend.

 

“Whatever you want, we'll talk about it later! Right now, I-” Yu found himself held back by a sociable, but still immovable Elizabeth as he tried to pass by her.

 

“If I may...” she offered. She seemed to take Yu's raised eyebrow for a 'yes'. Not a moment later, Yu found himself on the floodplain, only a few meters away from Chie.

 

A very angry Chie, who had unwittingly sent a Yosuke-shaped blur in his and Elizabeth's direction. Yu sidestepped to his right, while the attendant – who was in the middle of the Shadow's flightpath – limboed under the punted foe, throwing her arms back in a windmill motion and making wooshing noises for good measure.

 

As the Shadow sailed away into the sky, Chie raced over to her friend.

 

“Yu-kun! How'd you get here?! I almost-!”

 

“Calm down, Chie,” the leader reassured her. “It's fine.”

 

He looked over his shoulder to see Elizabeth still dodging a Shadow that had probably already burnt up on leaving the atmosphere.

 

“So...” he decided to change the subject. “That Shadow, was it Yosuke's? What happened?”

 

Chie let out a breath, coming down from a fighting high.

 

“Yeah, it wasn't just him, though. At first they didn't seem interested in fighting at all. But more and more kept showing up and it's like they didn't even know who I was. They just......” her recounting got faster and more unstable until she choked. “They just kept asking about Yukiko.” She swallowed before she felt the urge to tell the whole story.

 

“I don't even know why Yosuke's Shadow was there, but... to me it looked like it was in charge.”

 

Yu curiously raised his eyebrow before turning to Elizabeth, who had apparently gotten bored of her Shadow-dodging act and had gone back to standing upright.

 

“If that Shadow was stronger than the rest of them,” he asked “is it cause Yosuke's a Persona-user?”

 

Chie looked at the attendant in anticipation.

 

“Unlikely.” Elizabeth said with her usual bubbliness. “If anything, part of one'sid already being under the control of one's ego as a Persona should make a Shadow weaker. How curious...”

 

Covering up her disappointment with the non-answer, Chie let out an awkward laugh as she looked away from the two.

 

“I-it's probably just cause he's the guy I knew best out of that crowd. I mean, there were a bunch of other boys from school I barely recognized, Takeshi... even that creep Mitsuo.”

 

Yu grumbled at those names. Their intentions toward his girlfriend aside, the memories of a sleazy coward and an attention-grubbing murderer weren't exactly something he needed right now.

 

~

 

“... and I felt your performance salvaged what could have easily been hampered by the subpar effects that week. What's more-.”

 

“Wait. How did you know about that?”

 

“Mitsuru-san had made a point of recording all of your episodes to show her support. Though, she hasn't had enough time to actually watch them lately...”

 

Yukari's mind went blank at that strange revelation. She was grateful that Mitsuru took interest in her work, but it made her subconsciousdecision to isolate herself from her friends seem that much worse.

 

“Wait up.” Labrys, who had been leading the trio through the foggy streets, stopped defensively, holding Aigis and Yukari back with her free hand as the other hovered towards the axe on her back.

 

With the newfound silence, the three of them could all hear rapid but light footsteps slowly getting closer, occasionally slowing down as if about to trail off, only for them to pick back up in pace. Before too long, Labrys started to see a silouhette become visible through the fog.

 

“Ey! Who's there?” Labrys called out, Yukari readying her bow.

 

The silhouette stopped on the spot.

 

“Labrys?”

 

Both anti-Shadow weapons recognized Yukiko's voice as sheapproached them through the fog. Yukari caught a shaken expression on her face, before it was washed away by one of relief at the sight of a friendly face.

 

Given the events at the inn, familiar just didn't cut it for Yukiko right now.

 

“Good to see you're okay, Yukiko-san.” Labrys turned back to Yukari to introduce her. “Yukari-san, she's one of the Persona users here.”

 

Yukari gave a small but friendly smile and a nod.

 

“Nice to meet you.”

 

Yukiko only found her voice slightly familiar, her mind too busy being pulled back to the inn to recognize her appearance in the dark.

 

“Yukiko-san,” Aigis asked, grabbing the raven-haired girl's attention “we're looking for Narukami-kun. Do you know where he is?”

 

“No.” Yukiko answered a little too quickly before taking a breath to get her bearings.

 

“I'm sorry, I...” she hesitated. “I just saw what looked like his Shadow at my house but... that can't be right, can it?” She looked to Labrys, who turned to the more experienced Operatives.

 

“I don't really know.” Yukari finally said. “We just had a run-in with a Shadow that looked like me, but really, the only thing familiar about all this to me are the coffins.”

 

Yukiko's eyes shot wide open.

 

“There's more? You know about them!? What about the-?”

 

Her interrogation was interrupted by a familiar voice in her head.

 

“...o-senpai? Yukiko-senpai, can you hear me?”

 

The others in the group all perked up their heads at the voice, with Yukari doing a double-take.

 

“Rise-san!” Yukiko breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of one of her friends. “Where are you right now? Is anyone else with you?”

 

“I'm fine, Yukiko-senpai. Me and Marie-chan are almost at the shopping district. We-”

 

“Wait,” Yukari interrupted. “Rise? Rise Kujikawa?”

 

Rise sounded just as surprised at the voice on the other end.

 

“Yukari Takeba? From _Featherman Victory_? _You're_ a Persona-user too?”

 

Yukiko's eyes slowly widened as she began to recognize the design of Yukari's suit, while the archer gave a small laugh, half out of awkwardness and half due to the coincidence feeling genuinely funny to her.

 

“Yeah, for about three years. How about you?”

 

“A little under a year.”

 

The two had run into each other at a studio building shared by both of their companies only a few weeks ago. Only a handful of words had been exchanged between the two of them then, but they were both popular enough to recognize one another. The fact that the two were Persona-users unbeknownst to each other made the whole thing almost too surreal for both of them.

 

_This job sure lets you meet interesting people..._

 

“Anyway, listen;” Rise brought the group back on track “Teddie and Yosuke-senpai are holed up in Junes so we can meet up there and plan our next move. We're gonna see if we can find anyone else in the shopping district before we go to meet you there.”

 

Aigis spoke “I'm afraid we cannot join you immediately. Mitsuru-san, Akihiko-san, and Fuuka-san have also been taken. Even if the others have found them, we need to join Elizabeth-san.”

 

“The woman in the blue dress from yesterday?”

 

“She's the one who brought us here,” Labrys explained. “She said she was gonna try ta find Yu-kun.”

 

Rise sighed, whether out of relief or mild frustration at trying to organize everyone was anyone's guess.

 

“Look, I can tell Mitsuru-san's nearby, along with a few others, so I'm gonna join up with them. If Fuuka-chan isn't with them, we know Teddie will be at Junes and he can help us find her once we get there, okay?”

 

“Don't worry,” Yukiko reassured the three Operatives. “Sniffing out people in places flooded with fog and Shadows is pretty much the only thing he's good for. He won't let us down if we need him.”

 

Yukari raised an eyebrow at the backhanded commendation, but felt it was best to keep quiet as Yukiko lead them through the fog.

 

“Excuse me, Takeba-san, but... Is your outfit meant for some kind of promotion while you work for Mitsuru-san?”

 

“No! No, it's... just something I'm used to fighting in. Cause of the show, you know?”

 

“Well, I think it suits you very nicely.”

 

“... Thanks, Aigis.”

 

~

 

“Don't worry. I'll catch you.”

 

Upon their arrival at the north end of the shopping district, Rise and Marie were faced with a steep drop-off from the outskirts of the fields to the main road. It wasn't exactly a precipice, but the duo's continued trek into town had put them against an ever-denser concentration of fog, which was proving to be faster than Marie could adapt to it. They couldn't afford to stop to rest and risk getting ambushed and backed up against a drop, and Marie was looking too shaky to make it down on her own. It was then that Rise took it upon herself – as the more fit of the two – to jump down the three-meter slope and make her companion's landing as soft as possible.

 

Grumbling at the situation she was in, Marie leaned back until she tipped over the edge. As she began to fall, Rise fought the gut feeling that she was way in over her head and bent her knees in preparation for the coming load.

 

When the goddess did fall into Rise's arms, she took an instinctive step back to brace against the shock.

 

But to the idol's surprise, the other girl felt surprisingly light. Maybe it was the momentum brought by her falling further than the last time, but Rise felt as if she could spin Marie around her.

 

Rise's face turned a few shades redder at that thought.

 

_How many times did I dream about Senpai doing that to me?_

 

“Hey. You can put me down now.”

 

Snapping back to her situation, Rise lowered Marie onto her feet. Her boots' thick soles scraped the asphalt of the road as she put more weight on her legs, still leaning on Rise for support.

 

“How're you holding up, Marie-chan?”

 

The black haired girl took in a deep breath before violently coughing it back out.

 

“It's not as bad as it used to be,” she said “but there's just more and more of it the further we go. I'm not sure if I can be much help if another Shadow comes after us.”

 

Rise's expression turned serious at Marie's pessimism, all but pulling the other girl with her as she began to take off down the road.

 

“Hey, we don't need that kind of attitude right now. My house isn't too far, so you might be able to catch your breath there.If we're lucky, we might even run into Kanji and Naoto-kun.”

 

“Tall and Small?”

 

Rise tried to stifle laughing at her friends' expense. She remembered Naoto getting defensive about her height on at least one occasion. _But then again, she was talking to Yosuke-senpai, so what else is new?_ And while Kanji's insecurities never extended to his height, he didn't exactly react well to children, or even his fellow classmates suggesting that he was any older than his peers.

 

“Is that door supposed to be open?”

 

Marie pointed to the conspicuously wide-open door of Tatsumi Textiles. The two moved in to get a closer look, only to hear a commotion further down the street.

 

“There's got to be something you can do!”

 

Rise recognized the voice.

 

_Akihiko-san?_

 

An unfamiliar voice followed.

 

“I've done all I can right now. We need to find a proper healer like Yukari-san.”

 

Rise rushed over to the source of the argument as fast as she could carry Marie, passing right by the textile shop and the shrine. It wasn't long before she could tell the voices were coming from her house.

 

And the hole in the wall was a real eyesore on top of that.

 

_What happened here?_ Rise gasped, accidentally almost dropping Marie before the other girl leaned even harder onto her shoulder.

 

Taking care to let her friend down onto the curb, Rise decided to inspect her house while Marie kept watch outside, trying to adapt to the higher concentration of fog she knew was only going to get worse.

 

Rise only made it a few paces into the shop before the door at the other end of the room was opened by a tall boy in a familiar-looking Gekkoukan uniform.

 

“Who-?” he began before he was interrupted.

 

“Ken, what's the hold up? We need to get moving!”

 

Rise recognized a frantic Akihiko's voice behind the new face.

 

“Akihiko-san, is that you?” She called out over Ken's shoulder into the room.

 

_I don't remember that room looking that big before..._

 

“Kujikawa! Aren't you a sight for sore eyes...”

 

Ken moved forward, pushing Rise out of the shop and closely followed by Koromaru as he did his best to push the stands aside to make a wide berth for whatever came next.

 

Rise saw a pained, but awake Mitsuru being carried out by a goateed man she didn't recognize and Akihiko, whose only notable piece of upper-body clothing was currently wrapped around Mitsuru's abdomen. The executive looked up at Rise, trying her best to put on a strong face.

 

“Kujikawa,” her voice betraying only the slightest hitch, “I'm glad to see you're-”

 

“Never mind about me, Mitsuru-san!” Rise saw right through Mitsuru's weak facade. “What happened to you?!”

 

“It doesn't matter right now,” Akihiko forced the subject away from his own perceived failure. “Can you help her?”

 

Rise's face fell at the Akihiko's desperate tone matched with Mitsuru's sorry state. She slowly shook her head before turning her head inquisitively towards Ken.

 

“I've already done what I could,” he answered “but... I took too long. We need a dedicated healer.”

 

Rise nodded in understanding. “The best chance she has is if we get to where the others are. I've already-”

 

“Rise-san!”

 

The group's attention turned to Kanji and Naoto running towards them, with the former trailing behind due to the battle against his Shadow only moments ago, in addition to not being the one used to chasing down hardened criminals, just cameramen and supposed lovebirds.

 

Mitsuru managed a nod towards the detective. “Shirogane.”

 

“Kirijo-san.” Naoto gave her own polite nod in return before noticing her makeshift dressing. “I had noticed a commotion here earlier, if I had known the situation was this dire...”

 

“That's enough,” Akihiko cut off the brewing pity-party. “If that's everyone here accounted for, we should get going.” He motioned to Junpei with his head to start moving again.

 

“Wait a sec.”Marie finally spoke up, still sitting on the curb of the tofu shop. “I've got an idea, just give me half a minute...”

 

She got up under her own power before walking unevenly in the direction of the gas station.

 

“So...” Kanji turned to Rise. “that Marie chick is back? I thought she was...” He grumbled trying to find the right words.

 

“Yeah.” Rise shrugged. “It surprised me too.”

 

“Your friend seems kind of quiet,” Ken observed. “Is she hurt?”

 

Rise and Naoto exchanged glances before deciding to keep things simple. “No, no,she's okay. It's, uh... the air just doesn't agree with her.”

 

Junpei gave an awkward laugh. “Heh... city girls can be so dramatic, amirite?”

 

“Shut up, Junpei.”

 

Koromaru barked in agreement.


	8. Chapter 7: True Nature Calls

Chapter 7: True Nature Calls

 

“The grate's down. Either Yosuke's being careful or we're the first ones here.”

 

“No guesses on which one it is.” Chie joked at her friend's expense.

 

Yu gave a humoured eye roll as he, Chie, and Elizabeth closed in on the front entrance to Junes. The constant bickering she and Yosuke exchanged was a guilty pleasure of his during his stay in Inaba,in spite of the times where it devolved into a gridlock of gnashing teeth.

 

Hearing a crash come from inside the store made the three stop dead in their tracks on the far side of the road, followed by the reverberating noise of a voice thrashing in anger.

 

_Speak of the devil..._ Yu mused.

 

“OPEN THE GATE!”

 

Peeking through the unlocked security grate and the glass doors, Yu saw Yosuke overshoot a turn into the entry aisle, only recovering in time for a hulking dragon to come crashing after him, tearing up the floor with each step.

 

“Chie!” Yu wasted no time in following Yosuke's plea, running to the left side of the entrance and slipping his fingers under the unlocked security gate and prompting Chie to do the same on her end.

 

“Guys!” Yosuke called out either in recognition of his friends or to tell them to hurry.

 

Yu and Chie pulled the grate up to their shoulders just in time for the beleaguered store clerk to duck under it as he bolted through.

 

“CloseitcloseitCLOSEIT!”

 

The iron grate was slammed down before Yu and Chie dove for safety away from their respective ends. The grate proved about as effective at stopping the rampaging dragon as the ribbon at the end of a footrace. Flung off its track, the scrapped iron – along with a good deal of the attached wall – skidded away, scarring the road withrazor edges of the twisted metal.

 

Yosuke had taken the diversion to hide from his pursuer behind one of the nearby bushes, leaving the brutish Shadow to flail its stumpy neck in its search for the object of its wrath, paying no attention to the others on the scene.

 

“ _Hanamura!”_

 

Both Yu and Chie looked at each other, recognizing the voice behind the bestial roar.

 

_What the hell-?_

 

“Excuse me.”

 

The Shadow's head lurched towards the bubbly voice, only to find its lips pinched shut by Elizabeth's left thumb and index finger.

 

“While I hate to tie up such a fantastic display so soon, I have other plans for him.” The white-haired woman calmly explained to the once-mighty Shadow. “May I request a raincheck?”

 

The Shadow answered by snorting a torrent of ice out of its nostrils and into Elizabeth's face, only leaving her slightly vexed when the barrage ended.

 

“Surely a simple 'rawr' would have done just as well.”

 

Placing her grimoire on the ground, Elizabeth lay her non-pinching hand flat under the dragon's jaw, not unlike how a normal human would scratch a far, far smaller pet. She then released her grip on the monster's mouth, prompting the dragon to think that now was a golden opportunity to try and bite her head off. The instant the Shadow's head made the slightest hint of forward movement, her right hand shot up, propelling the massive Shadow skyward.

 

“Impressive, is it not?” Elizabeth mused to herself as the Shadow flew ever upward. “Perhaps Theo would enjoy this kind of sport...”

 

Once the Shadow became a resident of the stratosphere after only a few seconds, Elizabeth brought her right arm up, casually pointing up at the sky.

 

Yu's gaze swapped between the former attendant and the fog-shrouded sky she was pointing at, putting two and two together.

 

_She couldn't... could she?_

 

Yu's doubt was proven to be misplaced as a visible flare flashed in the night sky. Elizabeth seemed just as surprised as he was and proceeded to applaud her own feat.

 

Yosuke emerged from the nearby shrubbery, doing his best to march back into Junes before his nervous breakdown started showing.

 

“Right!” He said a bit too high-strung as he brushed himself off. “Now I'm _totally_ sure Junes is 100% Shadow-free!”

 

“Hey, wait a minute!” Chie called out to her friend as he stepped through the ruined frames of the glass doors on his way back into the store. “What the hell was that?!”

 

“You tell me!” Yosuke called out without looking back or breaking stride.

 

Thinking nothing of the situation, Elizabeth strolled through the ruined doorway. Yu shrugged before following suit, leaving an irritated Chie to bring up the rear.

 

Sometimes, Yu had to marvel at the hell Yosuke got put through on a regular basis and him taking it almost always with little more than a shrug and a smile. But looking at the trail the Shadow had left in it's wake...

 

“So...” Yu started as the scale of Yosuke's misfortune started to sink in. “Is your dad insured?”

 

Yosuke gave a single, defeated laugh. “Yeah. Sure was a good thing I insisted on dragon insurance...”

 

Yu peered over a ruined shelf into the relatively unscathed frozen food aisle. At the very least, the Shadow didn't start off as destructive as the store entrance showed.

 

If nothing else, it would make Teddie's day-by-day shenanigans seem tame by comparison.

 

_Wait..._

 

“Where's Teddie?”

 

Yosuke's expression snapped to that of a marooned man catching sight of a cruise ship on the horizon.

 

“You're right! The freezers are still good! We've got enough topsicles to bribe him to clean all this up!”

 

Yu resisted the urge to facepalm before he heard an exaggerated gasp.

 

“Yosuke! Sensei! Both of you trying to bribe me into doing your back _bear_ eaking work!”

 

The two turned to see Teddie – the back of his hand pressed to his forehead like the lead in a bad soap opera – with a very confused-looking Fuuka in tow. The pair seemed to have come from the warehouse through the produce section, with the cyan-haired woman discretely nursing her wrists.

 

“Teddie!” Yosuke snapped “What the hell took you so long? I've been running for my life while you were goofing off in the...” His tirade came to a halt when he noticed Fuuka standing right next to Teddie.

 

“Oh, uh... no offence, Fuuka-chan.”

 

“I-it's alright...” The Shadow Operative sounded shaken instead of just being politely meek, but Yosuke, Yu, and the recently-arrived Chie decided not to pry.

 

“More importantly, Fuuka-chan...” Chie changed the subject. “How'd you get into Junes?”

 

“Well...” Fuuka began. “I don't-”

 

“I'm glad you asked, Chie-chan!” Teddie cut in front of her with his usual gaudy energy. “You see, while Yosuke had subjected me to go through the dark rooms he was afraid of...”

 

“You little-!”

 

“... I happened across the fair maiden, Fuuka-chan, being held captive by a Shadow that wanted to steal my adorable image! This one even knew not to _bear_ y my cuteness under a hat and cape!”

 

“Thank god for that...”

 

“Knowing that I had to _bear_ the responsibility for the babe's safety, I puffed up my chest, looked that knockoff in the eye, and said-!”

 

~

 

“Wh... why don't you look like me?”

 

“Oh, you naive little boy...” The Shadow in front of Teddie was nothing like the ones of himself he had faced before. It wasn't monotonous and nihilistic like the one that grew to become his Persona, and it wasn't a poor imitation like the one from yesterday that turned out to be Labrys' Shadow. This one seemed amused with how well it knew Teddie, even if there was a visible difference between the red and blue bear mascot and the blonde, blue-eyed Junes employee. “I never stopped looking like you. That mask you're wearing might have come from inside, but it's still just a mask.”

 

“That's... not true...”

 

“Now, now. Lying like that won't do anything to impress _Labby-chan.”_

 

Teddie gulped at that mention.

 

“I mean _really_ , it's only natural for someone as feisty as us to get in over our heads. But going after something like her, don't you think that's kind of...”

 

The mascot's grin widened to show rows of needle-like teeth.

 

“Poking the bear?”

 

Teddie gave an indignant scoff. _First my look, then my_ _trademark! I'm not gonna let this sloth beat me!_

 

“I'll have you know, nowhere-near-as-cute-me, that Labby-chan and I hit it off just fine!I swore I'd be her knight and keep her safe!”

 

“Oh yes...” The Shadow almost laughed. “From the people who made her to destroy Shadows... And who she went back to, like any good weapon.”

 

Teddie's surety took a crippling blow.

 

“I...”

 

“Newsflash, cub-boy: The world isn't so simple that freaks can just mix with other freaks.”

 

Teddie began to panic.

 

“Nobody's a freak! Sh-she's more than that! _I'm_ more than that!”

 

Shadow Teddie let out a pearl of manic laughter.

 

“You really think you're a 'man of substance'? Those x-rays don't seem to think so. And your precious 'Ms. President'? She was _made_ to hunt down Shadows like us! How long till she decides it's bear season?”

 

“S... Stop...”

 

“Time to face facts; People can't change who they are just by wishing. You'll never really be human, and neither will she. Only way to take her out is the one that leaves her in pieces!”

 

“I SAID-!”

 

~

 

“I said 'You're not even good enough to be my fake!' Then with one strike from my _paw_ m, I knocked Fuuka-chan free of her cross! As she fell wantingly into my arms, she cried out ' _My hero!'_ and rewarded me with a big smooch!”

 

There was not a single audience member that didn't look unimpressed, save for Elizabeth, who was lying down on her front, enraptured in the fantastic tale like a starry-eyed schoolgirl.

 

“The Shadow then cried out 'NOOOOOOO!! I've been bested by your noble heart and pure love!' as it melted into a puddle on the floor!”

 

Elizabeth rose to a standing ovation, calling for an encore as Teddie took a bow.

 

“Uh, that wasn't what happened at all...” Fuuka clarified to the skeptical Investigation Team from within her Persona's domelike figure. “But at least it was easier to understand. I didn't get to see most of it...”

 

Aside from the fact that she had already witnessed Teddie's confrontation firsthand, Yu had asked her to see if she could use Juno to locate Mitsuru and the others. Rise had already brought her up to speed by the time Teddie had tried none-too-subtly to flatter her for the fourth time over the course of his story.

 

“Oh, Fuuka-chan! Why do you have to rain on my _bear_ ade? If Labby-chan was there, I know she'd tell you-”

 

“Tell 'em what, Ted?”

 

Teddie's idea of playing it cool went up in a puff of smoke when he saw Labrys, Aigis, Yukiko, and an unfamiliar Yukari standing in the ruined Junes entrance. The affectionate Shadow didn't waste any time in bounding into the arms of his designated charge, while Yu and Yukiko did the same in a far more subdued way.

 

“Labby-chan! And you had to come back on such an un _bear_ able, cursed night!”

 

Yukari didn't know whether to be impressed by the supposed – while still technically true – foreigner's Japanese, or groan at his apparent Junpei-tier sense of humour. Pushing it aside, she turned her attention to Fuuka as Aigis looked at her with a hurt expression.

 

“Fuuka-san, I... are you alright?”

 

Her expression was something that Yukari hadn't seen on her since she had recovered her memory of what had happened on the Moonlight Bridge.

 

“Don't worry, Aigis. It wasn't your fault.” Yukari found the way she was forgiven just as familiar before noticing Fuuka was now addressing her.

 

“It's good to see you again, Yukari-chan. It's been a while.”

 

“Yeah... kinda my fault for a few reasons...” Yukari bashfully ran her hand through her hair. “Tonight's...” she laughed nervously “made a lot of things clearer. Maybe we can catch up for real when this is all over? Us three and Mitsuru-senpai?”

 

Fuuka gasped. “Mitsuru-senpai!” The smaller woman took Yukari by the arm and started to pull her outside. “Come on, Yukari-chan. Mitsuru-san needs you to be ready for her as soon as she gets here.”

 

“Wait. Ready for what? What's wrong?!”

 

With Labrys, the Hanamuras and Chie having already moved further into the store – probably to keep a wandering Elizabeth from creating an even bigger mess – Aigis followed the two outside, leaving Yu and Yukiko alone.

 

The two hadn't said a word to each other. Yukiko looked into Yu's eyes, trying to get the image of his Shadow out of her mind. Yu, however, only saw the girl he loved staring at him mutely, devoid of cheer or even serenity.

 

“Yukiko?” Her body snapped alert as she realized what she was doing. “What's wrong?”

 

Yukiko took in a deep breath. “I'm fine, it's just...” she paused, her eyes shifted down. After all they had been through, telling Yu that she was chased out of her home by a lone Shadow sounded trivial at best.

 

But Yu just nodded and held out his hand.

 

“It's alright.” He said in that way she had been missing all night, reassuring without even the slightest hint of being patronizing.

 

Yukiko took her boyfriend's hand and pulled him in close.

 

“Thanks,” she said, a comforted smile on her face. “You being here makes it all better.”


	9. ACT 2 Chapter 8: A Gambit of Fools

**ACT 2**

 

**Chapter 8: A Gambit of Fools**

 

“I appreciate your concern Yukari, but I feel fine now.” Mitsuru waved away her friend's concern with as much dignity as one could muster lying in a reclining lawn chair.

 

“If you say so...” Yukari relented, handing her the bloodstained fur coat she had removed for the inspection. “Just try not to push yourself too much. I mean, I'm no doctor, but I'm guessing you wouldn't be in this shape if your Shadow just copied your sword instead of using the real thing.”

 

The executive sighed, draping the fur over her shoulders “I was certain research into high-frequency weapons would have given us an advantage too valuable to ignore. I never considered it being used against me...”

 

Yukari gave her friend a reassuring smile and a hand on the shoulder. “Well, at least you're alright. You guys had me worried when I found out you were kidnapped.”

 

“Speaking of which,” Mitsuru's jaw clenched as she began to sit up in her chair. “The person who brought us here has yet to be seen.”

 

Aigis nodded. “Elizabeth-san,” she said, turning to the attendant. “If you were unaware of our capture, why did you seek us out now, of all times?”

 

“Ah yes...” the white-haired woman began, drawing all who were present to her. “I admit that my goal was initially to seek out you and your friends for aid in a quest of my own.”

 

Yu raised an eyebrow, remembering Margaret speculating such a quest.

 

_Does she mean...?_

 

“Of the Great Seal, that sits at the edge of the unconscious.”

 

The eyes of the Shadow Operatives widened in unison, while Naoto seemed to be the only one among the Investigation Team to catch the implication.

 

Elizabeth continued. “While I was certain I would have had time, that is no longer the case. It appears that the red fog in this town appears to magnify human negativity in this world, and is fed to the unconscious one. The Shadows we have encountered are likely a side-effect of lesser inner trifles being inflated enough to form a Shadow of their own.”

 

Several awkward glances were shared, with some showing signs of guilt or shame.

 

“It can't be that bad,” Akihiko shrugged. “Even if these ones can take our shape, they're still weaker than regular ones. I mean, the one that looked like _me_ went down in one solid punch!”

 

Instead of reassurance, though. The boxer was only met with awkward silence.

 

“I dunno, Akihiko-senpai...” Junpei looked almost guilty at raining on his friend's parade. “Maybe I'm just outta practice, but... the one that looked like Mitsuru-senpai was no pushover. I was lucky it was weak to fire, otherwise it probably might've taken me out.”

 

Akihiko turned to Yu, certain that the team experienced in fighting Shadow selves would back him up. The leader's expression proved him wrong.

 

“We've seen something like this in the past...” Yu said finally. “At one point in our investigation last year, one of the people we were after started acting full of himself, maybe lost himself to his id.” Kanji gave a disgusted snort at the memory of the boy Yu was referring to. “We didn't know why then, but after he started ranting at us, his Shadow just vanished.”

 

Akihiko felt an almost suspect number of eyes deliberately avoiding him.

 

Naoto stepped in to explain. “A Persona is one's id under the control of one's consciousness, or 'ego'. If the ego and id become indistinguishable, it could result in one's Shadow having no need to exist; ergo, it disappearing.”

 

Akihiko felt the implications sink in, followed an intense pang of personal shame.

 

“I...” he rubbed the back of his head. “Don't wait for me...” he grumbled as he trudged away from the assembled teams and into the adjacent aisles to be with his thoughts.

 

“So...” Yukari said finally, breaking the tense atmosphere. “If the Shadows are just a side-effect, what's it really for? And what's wrong with the seal?”

 

“Every year,” Elizabeth continued her exposition “the being Erebus has reformed at the foot of the seal, and each year, I have destroyed it. But tonight...” Yukari's heart froze at the ominous turn the story took. “I have witnessed it reform after a single day, and on a scale I had never seen before. The appearance of this fog and its sudden growth surely cannot be coincidence. At the rate it was growing when I saw it, it is not unlikely that Erebus could simply grow strong enough to break its way through the seal and begin The Fall.”

 

Aigis was stunned silent, Yukari tried not to fly into a panic on the spot. Only Junpei managed to stammer out some wishful thinking.

 

“Y-you know how to stop it before that happens, though... right?”

 

The cold atmosphere seemed to shoot up as Elizabeth's jovial grin returned to her face. “Precisely! That is why I sought you out in the first place. With your power added to my own, the beast's renewed demise is curtains!”

 

A cricket-worthy silence passed after Elizabeth's verbal fumble. Yosuke leaned over to his partner's ear.

 

“ _I think we're hosed...”_ he whispered.

 

“Unfortunately, my dear sister...” A woman's reserved voice turned the heads of everyone assembled, punctuated by the steady clacking of heels on the store floor. “I'm afraid our circumstances are not so simple.”

 

~

 

“Margaret?” Yu was surprised to see Igor's graceful assistant in the real world. The only time she had before was the day before he left Inaba and even then it was only so that she could...

 

_Right, I should probably talk to her about that..._

 

“What are you doing outside?” Marie asked her roommate. “I thought you had that whole rule. 'None interference. Cause.' Is that right?”

 

While the woman was nowhere near frigid, Margaret gave no hit of a smile to Marie's misunderstanding.

 

“While both I and my master are ordinarily obliged to only observe and assist, never interfere, it appears that our enemy has made the first move.”

 

The unnatural look of surprise on Elizabeth's face was lost on those focusing on the new arrival.

 

“You mean...?”

 

The older sister nodded. “The instigator of these events, the one that took a number of you, is a rogue wild card; Sho Minazuki.

 

My master saw the potential in him and offered him the services of the Velvet Room. However, he rejected it and instead has decided to fall in with the ancient enemy of mankind: Nyarlathotep. The Crawling Chaos”

 

The Investigation Team turned to Yu, suspecting that he knew of such a being all along.

 

“Who, or _wh_ _at_ _,_ is Nyarlathotep?” he asked. “And why haven't we heard of it until now?”

 

Margaret kept her reserved demeanour as she addressed the equally uninformed group. “While both I and my master serve to see humanity one day reach enlightenment, The Crawling Chaos seeks to validate his belief that mankind will inevitably doom itself. While there are always humans who share this mentality, the one in this instance is the most witting servant any of us have encountered.”

 

Aigis wasn't sure whether to be horrified or disgusted.

 

“You mean... someone with that kind of power wants to...”

 

“This is _bullshit_!” Junpei snapped. “Makoto gave up his life to save us, and someone with his kind of power is just gonna throw his lot in with a monster like that?!”

 

Yu and Yosuke shared an awkward glance, fully aware this wasn't a new occurrence for them.

 

The name Junpei brought up piqued Naoto's interest. “I wonder...” she asked Margaret. “Given the mention of sacrifice and link to Elizabeth-san, I would assume this Makoto is the boy you mentioned after our battle in March? The soul that rests at the edge of the unconscious world?”

 

Margaret nodded. “When I told you, it was only a story to me. But now, it would appear true.”

 

“Either way,” Rise spoke up “this fog seems to come from Inaba. Doesn't that mean that whoever started it would still be here?”

 

Yu nodded. “So Sho's still here, maybe Nyarlathotep with him... That still leaves Erebus trying to end it all in the other world.”

 

“Which means the enemy has us flanked,” Mitsuru sighed. “There's no way we can face them all at once.”

 

Yu paused for only a moment before stepping forward.

 

“... We can distract them here.”

 

The skepticism didn't arise from Yu's teammates, but from Ken. “Are you serious?!”

 

The silver-haired leader remained steadfast, not even nodding.

 

“This is our home. Besides, you guys have a personal stake in this seal.”

 

“Margaret-san...” Aigis turned to regal woman. “You say that Minazuki possesses the Wild Card's power, even without your assistance?”

 

The attendant nodded, while Mitsuru shook her head. “But that shouldn't possible. If he had a Persona – and he claimed while controlling Labrys that he didn't – why was he incapable of entering the TV world yesterday?”

 

Margaret's lips pressed to form a hard line. “That is what makes him a curious case. I can only speculate that the Crawling Chaos using his power to hold Minazuki's potential back, in order to pretend he can bestow this power to him at a later point.”

 

“But at its core,” Aigis continued “his power and my own... what used to be Makoto's. They're the same, yes?”

 

“They are.” Margaret's tone betrayed no hint of curiosity.

 

“If that is the case...” Aigis hesitated for a moment. “Would it be possible for the seal to be replaced?”

 

The android was unsure if she had heard gasps from some of her friends.

 

“You mean he could...” Yukari shook the wishful thought from her mind, knowing all too well where that hope could lead. “We'd be condemning someone else in his place.”

 

“It is certainly possible.” Elizabeth said, completely ignoring the ethical issue. “While my previous guest's power was obtained through... unique circumstances, the power to wield bonds is universal across wild cards, regardless of how the owner came into possession of such power. Whether it be granted by a higher being,” she turned to Yu “inherited from another,” she gestured toward Aigis “or even gained though one's own resolve...” she indicated herself.

 

“That still leaves one problem...” Ken interjected. “Wild Cards are supposed to wield bonds of friendship, right? But this Minazuki guy wants to kill everyone, maybe even himself! There's no way someone like him could make another seal like Makoto-san.”

 

“That,” Elizabeth flicked a corrective index finger at the boy “my _cow_ cium riddled friend, is where you're wrong. While it has been years since your last visit, I have regularly seen the form the seal takes: A soul, as a statue, bound in chains. The chains can stay where they are. We only need to swap out the soul at the centre. The bonds are all that is needed to keep the soul in place and the door shut tight.”

 

“Even if they aren't his?” Yukiko asked.

 

“They have already been forged. Forever unbreakable.”

 

“Guys.” Yu interrupted. “Even if we can do this, do you really think we _should_? This is still a person we're dealing with. We almost condemned someone to die just because we _thought_ he was guilty, this doesn't seem much better.”

 

Yosuke, knowing his reaction would be called into question no matter what, stood up.

 

“Yu, this is different. This isn't Namatame being tricked into doing wrong. This isn't someone taking advantage of Adachi's boredom. This isn't even Mitsuo killing King Moron just to get attention! This is the guy who went over to the root of all evil and said 'Hey, Mister Root-of-All-Evil! How about you get off your ass and we kill everyone?'” He turned over his shoulder to Margaret. “That's pretty much how it went, right?”

 

The assistant said nothing, only for Marie to but in.

 

“He's right, Yu. This guy had his chance to do good. Its big nose was all up in his face!”

 

Junpei nodded. “Believe me. It's ugly, but people like this are best taken out before they make things worse.”

 

Naoto's reasearch into the Operatives suggested what experience he was coming from. “The doomsday cult that circulated at the start of 2010?” Junpei's nod confirmed her suspicions.

 

“In truth,” Mitsuru spoke up “Minazuki's circumstances are not all that different from theirs. He too was part of the Kirijo Group's experiments to create a Persona-using soldier. He was determined to tell me as much while he held Yamagishi hostage.”

 

She signed as she slowly rose from her seat. “Even still, there is another issue outside of the metaphysical we are ignoring. Even after his soul is freed, Yuki's remains have already been cremated and scattered. He would have no place in the real world. At best, he would wander our world as a ghost for eternity.”

 

The revelation dropped an anvil on the Operatives' hopes to truly repay their friend.

 

Leave it to someone who herself was made of metal to lift it off.

 

“Wait. That ain't true.” Labrys felt a strange knot in her chest when the assembled turned their eyes on her. “I mean... we already know stuff from over there can live just fine here.”

 

“We do?” Yukari's stomach was trying its best not to do flips.

 

“Yeah! Just ask Ted!”

 

Teddie let out a small 'eep!' at his origins being outed, only to be calmed down by a reassuring nod from Yu.

 

“It's alright, Teddie. Go ahead and tell them.”

 

“I... It's like Labby-chan says...” Teddie began. “Back before Sensei and Yosuke found me, I was just a hollow bear costume... a Shadow.” The few shocked expressions were quickly snuffed out. “But I found out I didn't have to stay in that world, I could have left any time if I wanted. I even grew a _bear_ and new me!”

 

Naoto nodded. “Even with him being a unique circumstance, Teddie was a creation of the unconscious and was still able to not only exist in this world as he was, but to create a form of his own. If Makoto-san's soul is affected by his self-image, it stands to reason that it would create a new body in the unconscious world out of necessity. And since he would have experience with possessing a physical body of his own already, he may not even have the technical discrepancies Teddie has with his.”

 

Yukari tried to hide the sheer elation she felt swelling in her, but a noticeable smile and a few joyful tears broke through. The hope she had tried to dismiss for years was now renewed.


	10. Chapter 9: Bonds Before the Storm

Chapter 9: Bonds Before the Storm

 

“Then if it's decided,” Aigis asked. “How much time do we have?”

 

“Our only deadline is the growth of Erebus.” Margaret answered. “Nyarlathotep has no reason to come after us as long as the fog continues to spread and feed his monster.”

 

Mitsuru took the good news in stride. “Then we should use this time to prepare. Some of us don't have our weapons on hand.”

 

“Wait.” Marie moved to the centre of the group, pulling her blue handbag off her shoulder and unzipping it. She emptied her bag onto the floor, sending a small armoury of familiar weapons pouring out.

 

Yu eyed the stockpile before looking at Marie in disbelief. “Did you... take those from Daidara's?”

 

“It was on the way.” The black-haired girl shrugged innocuously.

 

Yu sighed, admitting that it would probably be alright as long as the stolen wares were returned discretely.

 

As the unarmed members of both teams picked their way through the pile for something fitting, the rest took the time to mingle.

 

~

 

Yu noticed Ken reaching into the pile of weapons, pulling out a small knife for Koromaru.

 

“I take it he's yours, Ken-kun?”

 

Ken chuckled. “Not really. He's pretty much another dorm-mate to me. What about you, Yu-san?”

 

Yu kneeled down to scratch the dog behind the ears. “The most experience I've got is with foxes... Not sure if she's a Persona-user, but she's quite the penny pincher.”

 

The middle-schooler wasn't sure if the wild card was messing with him, but he decided to not press the matter.

 

Meanwhile, at the corner of the assembly, Yukari sat either gazing off into space or keeping a watchful eye on Mitsuru in case she showed any signs of relapse into debilitating agony.

 

“Yukari-san?”

 

The archer gave a startled jump at Aigis addressing her, with Labrys in tow.

 

“I'm sorry if I'm disturbing anything, but...” she paused. “I was wondering if we could talk. About Makoto.”

 

“Uh... sure,” Yukari said, confused. “But why now?”

 

Aigis pulled her sister in front of her by the arm. “Labrys is curious about him, and I thought it wouldn't be fair to discuss him without you.”

 

Yukari looked at Labrys, who was worried that she was prying into the young woman's private life, given the incident with her Shadow in the hospital. She gave Labrys a reassuring smile.

 

“It's alright, Labrys.” She patted the floor next to her, welcoming the two to sit down.

 

“Let's see...” Yukari began as Aigis and Labrys each took a seat. “He didn't seem too friendly at first. Sometimes it was creepy how quiet he was. But as time went on, I got to see that he honestly cared. About all of us... I think it really started at Yakushima, not long before we met Aigis...”

 

As Yukari started to reminisce, Yukiko stopped by the unattended Mitsuru.

 

“Are you alright, Mitsuru-san?” she asked. “Rise-san told me you were hurt pretty bad.”

 

Mitsuru held up her hand before she had to endure more doting. “I appreciate your concern, Amagi, but it's nothing serious.”

 

Yukiko withdrew into an awkward silence before finding another avenue of conversation. “Yukari-san mentioned that you were familiar with something like this happening.”

 

The redhead nodded. “That's almost putting it lightly. We called it 'The Dark Hour' back then.”

 

“Well... that's what I wanted to ask you about.” Yukiko continued, worried she may not like where the conversation would end. “When it began, I was at home and...” she almost choked. “My family... they turned into coffins.”

 

Mitsuru's eyes widened. The Dark Hour had become such a large part of her life that the shock it might give to someone less familiar hadn't even occurred to her.

 

“Then you have nothing to worry about. It's only natural for those without the potential.” She gave her a reassuring nod. “Once the Dark Hour passes, they return to their own forms, with no memory of the change. To them, it's as if it never happened.”

 

Yukiko had nothing to say other than a profound sigh of relief before wearing a smile from ear to ear.

 

~

 

Out of the snack aisle, Junpei resumed his search for the likely brooding Akihiko, pulling open a box of 'emergency' animal crackers Yosuke had been too slow to stop him from grazing.

 

“Hey! Hold it right there!”

 

Junpei sighed. Yosuke must've sent the big guy to rough him up, or at least that's what he would have thought if Kanji hadn't shown on the journey from the shopping district to Junes that he was an awkward do-gooder who only went through an angry-looking growth spurt.

 

“What's the problem, kiddo?”

 

Kanji did a double take at that comment. _At least it's better than 'mister'._

 

“I, uh... nothing.” the tailor faltered. “Just wanted to know if you're lookin' out for the penguin.”

 

Junpei looked down at the box, then back at Kanji before fighting the urge to burst into laughter.

 

“Dude,” he handed the box to Junpei. “it's good to know someone gets it.”

 

Kanji took the box, fishing through the contents before chomping down a common rabbit cracker.

 

“So...” Junpei observed the scene before him with a mischievous look on his face. “what're you after it for?”

 

Kanji looked up, his mouth stuffed with crunchy tigers and sheep “Mmph?”

 

“The penguin. You care about bragging rights or you looking for a good luck charm?” The older man smirked and winked as he leaned in for a nudge. “Maybe with the _ladies_..?”

 

Kanji almost choked on a bear cracker.

 

“A-ha!” Junpei relished the rare opportunity he had to outwit someone. Even if they weren't exactly an honour student. “So that's how it is!”

 

“N-no it ain't!” Kanji covered his mouth to wipe off the panic crumbs. “It ain't like that at all!”

 

“Uh-huh.” Junpei said with a hint of nostalgia. “So what's the deal between you and Naoto-chan?”

 

Kanji's eyes went bloodshot.

 

“Just sayin', the way you were looking at her on the way here was kinda...”

 

The blond sighed. “Look. Can ya-”

 

“Hey, I'm not gonna do anything.” Junpei held up his hands. “But a little advice – and I probably wouldn't be saying this if we didn't have this kind of fight coming up soon – tell her before it's too late. For either of ya.” he said as he handily swiped the box of animal crackers out of Kanji's hands. “Believe me, I had a close call of my own.”

 

As Junpei walked away – continuing his search for Akihiko as he munched away on the snacks – Kanji frustratedly ran his hand through his hair.

 

“Dammit...”

 

~

 

“Why the long face, Teddie?” Rise asked the unnaturally glum-looking blond, sitting on the ground a short distance from those around the weapon stockpile.

 

Teddie let out a small whimper. “It's Labby-chan. She's busy with Ai-chan and Yuka-chan and it won't be long before we have to split up again...”

 

“Aww...” The idol knelt down next to the team's mascot. “If you want to spend more time with Labrys, why not just go over there and-?”

 

Without any hint or warning, Teddie made a blubbering dive into Rise's bosom. “I-it's not that!” The Shadow moaned, wrapping his arms around Rise's neck before she could throw him off. “I made a promise to be her knight and I c-can't keep it! Just like... J-just like..!”

 

Surprised not only by Teddie's sincerity, but that his impromptu glomp _hadn't_ turned out to be him trying to cop a feel, Rise slowly patted him on the back.

 

“There there, Teddie...” She said trying to shush him into calming down. “Maybe you'll get your chance next week when we're attacked by a demonic idol company,” she joked. “This town doesn't seem to be left alone for long.”

 

Teddie sniffed.

 

“Th-... that would be nice.”

 

~

 

“Yosuke, do you have any-”

 

“No.”

 

“But I didn't even-”

 

“All the meat in the store is either in the freezer or the garbage!”

 

“I know that, you dumbass!” Chie growled at Yosuke. “But I've been fighting Shadows on an empty stomach for... who knows how long! I just need something to keep me going through the night!”

 

Yosuke groaned. On top of how much shit he was in, and the upcoming fight against all-powerful ancient evils in the middle of the night, he had also managed to wrongfully judge Chie on one of the rare times her trying to mooch off him was justified.

 

“Alright, alright!” He reached into his pocket to pull out a handful of small fruits with bright, orange peels. “I was saving these for myself, but you obviously need them more.”

 

Chie took one from his palm, squeezing it between her thumb and index finger. “What are they?”

 

“Kumquats. They're like oranges, but spicy.”

 

Shrugging, Chie popped the fruit into her mouth like a piece of popcorn.

 

“Hey!” Yosuke warned. “Make sure you don't choke on the-”

 

Chie brought her empty hand to her mouth, removing it a second later containing two tiny...

 

“... seeds.”

 

As Chie swallowed down the fruit, her eyes widened like she'd stumbled upon some miracle cure.

 

“Woo!” She yelled, blowing her spicy breath right into Yosuke's face. “Thanks a bunch, Yosuke! I'll take it!”

 

Before Yosuke could refuse, his friend had snatched the six remaining kumquats out of his hand, replacing them with two still moist seeds, and darting back to the meeting place.

 

“'Thanks', huh?” he said to himself as he popped the seeds into his mouth, swirling them around before crunching down and releasing the bitter pick-me-up.

 

_She's got a weird way of showing it._

 

_~_

 

“You know...” Fuuka pondered aloud. “This version of the Dark Hour seems to be kind of long, doesn't it?”

 

Naoto agreed. “It makes sense. If this phenomenon is intended to power Erebus, there's no reason Nyarlathotep would impose a time restriction on himself. Supposedly, it could go on indefinitely.”

 

“Then what _should_ we call it?” Marie asked. Even in her earliest of meetings with Yu, she had shown herself to be almost pedantic when it came to dismissing misleading names. “ _The Red Night? Dark Time? Misty Midnight?_ ”

 

Marie left the conversation as abruptly as she had joined it to reach into her bag and jot down her latest inspiration into her notepad.

 

“Sister,” Elizabeth asked Margaret with a twinge of worry. “Did you take this poor girl in because you missed me? If I had known, I would have visited once or twice.”

 

The elder sister answered with unreadable deadpan. “Rest assured, Elizabeth, that was not the reason.”

 

Turning the conversation to its more serious-minded participants, Margaret continued. “What is more important is how to bring this condition to an end. The Crawling Chaos is usually not one for direct intervention, so it stands to reason that Sho Minazuki is the real driving force of these events.”

 

“I see...” Naoto's eyes were downcast in thought. “So once Minazuki is disposed of, one way or another,” she said, exchanging gazes from both Elizabeth and Fuuka. “That should give Nyarlathotep sufficient cause to withdraw and have the town return to normal?”

 

“Ideally, yes.” Margaret answered. “If not, it is uncertain if we would be able to defeat him conventionally, even ignoring the changes to the environment.”


	11. Chapter 10: Clash With Chaos

Chapter 10: Clash with Chaos

 

The mascot Shadow flexed his fuzzy frame after zipping his head back on. Feeling everything fit as it should, he waddled over to the rest of his team.

 

“Isn't it kinda cramped in there?” Yukari quietly asked Labrys.

 

“Meh,” the anti-Shadow weapon shrugged. “Probably just a Shadow thing.”

 

While the rest of the teams made their final preparations, Yu, Aigis, Mitsuru, Margaret, and Elizabeth convened at the centre.

 

“So once we have Sho's attention,” Yu recapped. “Elizabeth-san will take you to the seal to get rid of Erebus. But how will you know when it's time?”

 

Mitsuru and Aigis exchanged knowing looks.

 

“Minazuki is...”

 

“... not the type to be discrete.” Mitsuru finished. “We will likely be able to hear him from the parking lot.”

 

“Right...” Yu extended his hand, which Mitsuru took. “Well, whatever happens, good luck.”

 

The executive nodded with the handshake. “To us all.”

 

As the leaders and attendants parted to join their respective groups, Yu posed Margaret one last question.

 

“So, honestly. What are our chances?”

 

“You are a Wild Card,” Margaret said, without breaking stride or making eye contact “the pinnacle of mankind's potential, but your power alone pales in comparison to the Crawling Chaos. That is partially why I am here.”

 

“Well...” Yu said just before entering earshot of his team. “However it turns out, I appreciate the help.”

 

As the Investigation Team rose to leave Junes, Marie strained to pull herself up. Rise reached out to help, only to be turned away by her hand.

 

“Marie,” goddess or no, Yu had reservations about having one of his friends fight with such a visible disadvantage. “You don't have to do this. We won't blame you if you sit this ou-”

 

“It's not as bad as it looks.” Marie interrupted, clenching her teeth as she forced herself on her feet. “Besides...” she said as she walked out into the fog, with Rise and Chie tailing her at arms length. “You had to save me from _myself_. What good am I if I can't even help you protect one town?”

 

Yu went silent at that question. Taking it as resignation, Marie began to take in deeper and deeper breaths of the toxic air, with Rise having Kouzeon on standby in case things went bad.

 

“How do you feel?” Chie asked.

 

“It...” Marie had to stop herself from spitting. “It tastes like despair.”

 

Margaret gave a splinter of a grin from the back. “Then from what I hear, it should make a fine inspiration for an artist such as yourself...”

 

Marie went rigid, blurting out a “SHUTUPYOUJERK!” before taking in another breath of air, recoiling at the sensation.

 

“It's alright, Marie-chan.” Rise reassured her. “Just keep at it. The more you breathe in, the more you'll get used to it.”

 

“Yeah!” Chie cheered her on. “It's just like training. The more effort you put in, the stronger you get coming out!”

 

As the group circled around to the back of Junes, Marie repeated the mantra to herself in her head as her breaths steadily deepened.

 

_The more you breathe, the stronger you get._

 

_The more effort you put in, the stronger you get._

 

_The more you put in, the more strength comes out._

 

_The more you put in,_

 

_the more you get out!_

 

Marie's eyes lit up with determination in the middle of the abandoned Junes parking lot. All she felt was the rhythm of her lungs inflating and deflating, cycling what not too long ago had almost killed her with no help whatsoever.

 

“I am Izanami-no-Mikoto,” Marie called out to the sky. “I am the caretaker of mankind and their land! If you're the one who threatens my charges...”

 

She pointed defiantly ahead of her.

 

“Come at us, bro!”

 

There were not enough Persona-using crickets in the world to illustrate how flat her dare fell on its face. Rise's reaction could only be described as the shambling mix between an unimpressed facepalm and a verbal pity clap.

 

“N... not bad for your first try, Marie-chan...”

 

But the awkward silence was broken by the approaching sound of slow clapping coming through the fog.

 

“Well, how about this?” Sho Minazuki sneered as he strode into plain view of the Investigation Team.

 

“The Kirijo dogs didn't wanna take me on? They sound more like a bunch of _pussies_ to me!” The redhead threw his head back in a fit of manic, nasal cackling. “NYAAAHAHAHAHAAAA...”

 

His head snapped back down, flashing his enemies a toothed grin. “Just kidding!”

 

The brief silence brought on by his jarring mood swing was punctuated by Naoto's disbelief in spite of all her experience with the criminal mind.

 

“What asylum was this lunatic broken out of?”

 

Yu stepped forward, taking the psychopath's attention off his friend.

 

“So you're Sho Minazuki?”

 

The wild card's even tone was like a splinter wedged into Sho's caustic brain.

 

“Yeah.” His scarred face cracked into a defensive rage. “What's it to you, ya chrome-dome boy scout?”

 

_Never heard of that one before._ Yu took the barb in stride, knowing the best he could do right now was stall for time.

 

“I know I can't convince you to stop.” Sho's expression then shifted to an amused disappointment. “But why do this in Inaba? What brought you here?”

 

“You did, boy.”

 

An unfamiliar middle-aged man's voice came from behind Sho. Baritone with the kind of patronizing authority that could turn even the most iron-willed youth to a submissive child.

 

Yu would know. He recognized the voice, along with the face that appeared using it.

 

“The whelp's a competitive one, I'll give him that.”

 

Out of the fog, in a manner more dignified than menacing, was a strong-built man in a black overcoat on top of a pinstripe business suit. His face was weathered, but stern, capped with a cropped head of silver hair and beard.

 

Yu's eyes went wide. _No..._

 

The similarities between their leader and the new face were not lost on the rest of the Investigation Team. Barely audible gasps and mumblings arose from within the group.

 

“Is that...?”

 

“Yu-senpai's-?”

 

“No.” Yu cut them off. Not out of denial, but of certainty. “You may have his face, but you're not even a Shadow.”

 

Her boyfriend's tacit admission about his family resemblance made a lightbulb go off in Yukiko's head.

 

_So that's really what he...?_

 

“I-it's...” Yukiko tried to stifle her laughter. “Snrk! His... pffft! He's just Yu-kun with a beard!”

 

Chie rolled her eyes at the inopportune timing, but couldn't help but smile, an expression not shared by Sho or what was clearly Nyarlathotep in disguise.

 

The older man gave a disgusted snort before dissolving and exploding into a writhing mass of black tentacles.

 

“Oooh!” Teddie perked up at the display in front of them. “I know where this is going!”

 

The team's gaze snapped to their mascot before realizing where his knowledge probably came from, slowly but surely setting all eyes on a confused Yosuke.

 

“... What?”

 

Further disgrace was avoided by the mass of tentacles letting out a twisted roar as its writhing mass reformed into the shape of a man, ending as an eight-foot tall pharaoh statue with a gaping, toothed maw in the place of its chest.

 

~

 

“That sounds like our cue.” Akihiko called out to the rest of the operatives, Mitsuru nodding as she took Yukari's spare evoker, leaving the archer with Makoto's old one.

 

“Narukami's team is running on limited time,” Mitsuru briefed her team. With enough luck, we should be able to eliminate Erebus and change the souls before the enemy notices.”

 

Yukari nodded to her friend, trying to keep herself from quivering with anticipation.

 

As the group assembled for their transportation, Akihiko took one last look at Mitsuru.

 

“You're sure you're alright?”

 

The Kirijo president looked at Akihiko for only a brief moment, a brief crack in her emotional façade showing before sealing back up and focussing straight ahead.

 

“Elizabeth-san.”

 

The attendant nodded, whisking them away from Inaba and the material world.

 

 

 

 

“ _L_ _eaving your lessers to_ _try and face_ _me?_ _I suppose I should be thankful for your sense of fair play. After all, what chance do I have against the mighty Shadow Operatives?_ ”

 

A low, shifting chuckle reverberated through the minds of Elizabeth and the Operatives.

 

“ _Once again, Mitsuru, your family's legacy threatens to doom the world._ _Did you honestly ever think you could succeed in your quest for redemption? Futile..._

 

_You could never save anyone, Akihiko. Your juvenile obsession with power proves to be in vain time and time again. Perhaps I should have burt down your refuge, to see who would have been unlucky enough to crawl out with you._

 

_Even now you still remain jealous of Yukari, Aigis. Not that you have any right to be... You took everything from her, even before you met. Your avarice proves just how human you are._

 

_And even if The Fall remains held back, you will never see your beloved again, Yukari._ When humanity falls to dust, he will only be free to starve alone on a barren rock.

 

_Speaking of which, 'One Who Rules Over Power'... your quest had gone nowhere with your aimless wandering. You abandoned your post, your family, for nothing. Or were you just waiting for the competition to die off?_

 

_Junpei. Ever eager to turn away from the harsh reality. After all these years, you still keep Chidori in the dark. Didn't your father have his own means of escaping..?_

 

_Aren't you a model student, Ken? Such a shadowy double-life for a child as fawned over as you. When you fall, your death will appease nobody but yourself._

 

_You never amounted to anything, Yamagishi. Always having to be pulled out by your betters, but never your own parents._

 

_Fifth Generation Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon, Labrys. You were in blissful ignorance in the home I made for you._ _Once that petulant fool makes you crush your precious sister, you'll wish you_ _had_ _never left..._ ”

 

In the Shadow Operatives' transition to the unconscious, all they heard of Koromaru was a low snarl.

 

“ _Your failure is certain no matter your struggle. Know that it was the Kirijo's_ _designs that brought you to this_ _._ ”

 

A dark cackle welcomed the Operatives to a familiar starfield with its ground in the form of golden smoke, at the foot of a massive door and a red-eyed monstrosity about to bear down on it.


	12. ACT 3 Chapter 11: Tearing Down Darkness

**ACT 3**

 

**Chapter 11: Tearing Down Darkness**

 

Erebus, or whatever the fog had turned it into, stood almost as tall as the door it lived to breach. The chains that held the statue together rattled as they weathered each failed attempt beforehand, but the beast's recent growth spurt was too great to risk just standing by and hoping for the best.

 

“Feel free to join in anytime!”

 

No matter what Elizabeth's end motivations were, she was the first of the new arrivals to act, lobbing a Megidolaon at its forward-facing head. The sphere impacted like the shell from a mounted cannon blasting snow off a mountainside, drawing Erebus' attention away from the seal.

 

Both Aigis and Yukari followed Elizabeth's attack with volleys of gunfire and arrows, followed in turn by Mitsuru, having Artemisia freeze the larger chunks of the beast that were blasted off, which made them easy targets for Akihiko, Labrys and Junpei to shatter.

 

Looking for a weak point, Yukari had Isis drill away at one of Erebus' eyes with a sustained Garudyne. The steady damage inflicted by the attack sent bore into the red mass, but the monster swatted the winged Persona away with a shake of its head before she could leave any lasting impact.

 

“Come on!” Yukari sent her Persona back for another pass, with a fury and determination she hadn't felt in years.

 

“ _Primal Force!”_

 

Isis fired a spear of energy into the reforming eye, breaking through to the centre before the red mass burst open. Erebus threw its head back with a pained roar, only to be caught off guard by an overhead God's Hand from Athena, knocking the beast's head back down.

 

_That technique..._ Aigis thought as she pressed the assault on the slowly dwindling abomination. _Yukari-san's Persona has not been capable of such a feat since we fought each other in the colosseum..._

 

She turned back to see her friend; sweat on her brow and the drive that came from a dream years in the making being back in her grasp. Aigis smiled as she advanced on her target.

 

_This might not be as difficult as I had feared..._

 

~

 

As far as swordsmanship went, Sho was crude, artless, and as Yu was learning firsthand, vicious. The redheaded wildchild had been keeping the team leader's hands full, keeping him on the defensive throughout.

 

“Ya know,” Sho taunted through a clenched grin. “Just so we're clear, I don't _need_ a glowy sidekick to gut you.”

 

Yu swiped horizontally with his katana, colliding with his opponent's serrated dual swords. “Is that right?” he quipped, unfazed by the maniac's goading.

 

“Yeah. I'm just holding back so you can see your toadies _croak_ first!”

 

Yu tried to break away from the duel, only for Sho to dart ahead of him, cutting him off.

 

“Ah-ah-ah...” the rogue wild card waggled one of his swords like a stern parent's finger. “What's wrong, chief? Don't think they can _hack_ it?”

 

Yu looked past Sho to see Nyarlathotep all but shrugging off the potshots his friends were throwing at him. Margaret was unsurprisingly having the best luck while the rest did their best to keep their distance.

 

“Hey, grampy!” The scarred boy laughed over his shoulder. “This guy's scared you're going too hard! How about some gofers to soften 'em up?”

 

The pharaoh's maw twitched with a snort before knocking his attackers back with what looked like nothing more impressive than a blast of air.

 

“So be it. The potential of man has fallen sharply in my absence, it seems...”

 

The rumbling of tank engines came into earshot before the south wall of the Junes parking lot was demolished by two side-by-side sets of shining, white tank treads.

 

“Aw, you've gotta be _kidding_ me!” Yosuke groaned, not helped by all manner of other Shadows that came through the breach afterwards.

 

“So you're giving up already, _partner_?”

 

The Investigation Team heard a voice that was shockingly familiar, even moreso to Yukiko. In contrast with the Shadows in the form of tanks, minotaurs, cavalry, and mecha, Shadow Yu stood flanked by only the lingering eyes of hiding seeker Shadows, with a surprising Shadow Fuuka off in the distance, encased in its own Juno.

 

“Pitiful...” the gold-eyed leader furrowed its brows at the team. “Look at you. Like a headless chicken, running around in a blind panic before you flop over dead.”

 

Yu tried again to break off from the fight with Sho, with the same success as before. His enemy's laughter bubbled as he came at him with a flurry of swings.

 

“Pray that Minazuki decides to kill him fast,” Shadow Yu said to his host's friends, conjuring its sword out of nothing as it marched towards them. “If not, what he fears happening in his absence will be shown right in front of his eyes.”

 

_What he fears..?_

 

As the lesser Shadows began to circle around the team, Yukiko stepped forward, putting herself in front of Yosuke and the rest.

 

“I'll handle this.”

 

At her word, the Shadows converged on the team, with each member hitting back just as hard, eventually drawing the bulk of the fight away from the two remaining Shadow selves.

 

“A shame...” Shadow Yu looked at Yukiko with its even stare. “I wanted to spare the both of you by killing you at the inn. Now he'll see you die first hand, and there's nowhere for you to run.”

 

But there was no fear to be seen in the young woman's face, only an iron will with a faint glow of anger.

 

“You're wrong.” She said. “Now, you don't have my family and home to hide behind.”

 

Shadow Yu's eyebrow twitched “Hm..?”

 

“ _Come, Sumeo-Okami_!”

 

Like an artificial sun, Yukiko's golden Persona burst into being between the heiress and the Shadow. Its blank face and fiery long hair searing at the Shadow's eyes, even casting a glare as far as Shadow Fuuka's dome.

 

“can't see...” The navigator Shadow began to hyperventilate as the light became more and more intense. “can'tseecan'tseecan'tsee! Nononononono!!”

 

Shadow Yu, on the other hand, was too busy shielding its eyes from the display than to worry about its high-strung support.

 

“Tch. As useless as the-”

 

The silver-haired Shadow was cut off when a blistering column of fire shot up from where it stood, atomizing the top of the pavement instantly. The inferno softened after only a few seconds, the solid-looking form losing its shape as it shrank down with licks of flame stretching out like the bare branches of a sakura tree.

 

The pretty display was sadly blown out when Shadow Yu charged at Sumeo, scorched but still healthy enough to almost break the Persona in two.

 

Shadow Fuuka meanwhile began to come down from its panic enough to retreat behind a wall of musha and gigas Shadows. Everyone present was too preoccupied with trying to stay alive to wonder if that signified anything.

 

“Need to find the weakest link...” Fuuka scanned the battlefield as Margaret turned her attention away from her duel with Nyarlathotep himself to save Yukiko from Shadow Yu's counterattack.

 

Meanwhile, Kanji and Naoto had their hands full trying to eliminate the tank Shadows. In the past, Naoto had never had trouble dispatching similar enemies encountered in the labyrinths of the TV world with a well placed light or dark attack. But the open space of the parking lot left the Shadows far more room than usual to maneuver, which made catching them next to impossible.

 

“GrrrrRAH!”

 

Kanji, on the other hand, had stumbled onto a much more effective method by going after the Shadows directly, only for them to try and turn him into roadkill. Takeji Zaiten's overwhelming strength, however, proved capable of not only catching the oncoming tank, but keeping it trapped when it tried to flee.

 

“Naoto! Hit it now!”

 

“Right!” The detective saw the sitting duck sent out Yamato Sumeragi. “ _Mamudoon!”_

 

The violet glyph drew itself along the ground under the Shadow, complete with the ominous fires at the four corners of the circle. The Shadow only lasted a scarce few moments before the spell took, disintegrating the tank and leaving the unburdened Emperor Persona to disappear.

 

“Alright!” Kanji huffed trying to throw off the strain. “On ta the next one!”

 

“Kanji, behind you!”

 

The warning came too late for Kanji's Persona to ready himself for the tank coming from behind, only able to make a last-minute backhanded swing with his giant sword. The batted Shadow was flung across the parking lot, sailing through the night sky before making a crash landing through Junes' receiving bay.

 

Kanji's pupils shrank to dots as Yosuke was too busy fighting back-to-back with Teddie against gigas and knight Shadows.

 

“S-sorry, Yosuke-senpai!” Kanji pleaded before trying to distract himself from his blunder with another Shadow.

 

“Don't worry about it!” Yosuke shot back as Takehaya Susano-o sent its buzzsaw through a row of three Shadow wrestlers. “At least the insurance company might believe that one!”

 

Teddie, however, was having a harder time against the knights that came at him, the gaudy-looking Kamui-Moshiri struggling to not get skewered as it lobbed surprise boxes at the infernal cavalry.

 

“Come on, Teddie!” Rise cheered from the back. “Fight for your lady's honour!”

 

“What about me?!” Yosuke piped up, with Teddie too busy doing manly roars at Rise's encouragement to notice.

 

“Don't worry, Yosuke-senpai...” the navigator teased. “I'm sure Chie-senpai's got your back!”

 

“Oh, _thanks!”_ Yosuke rolled his eyes, not noticing the wounded venom Chie shot at him out of the corner of her eye.

 

~

 

“Splendid!” Elizabeth praised her companions. “This is a far more suitable size!”

 

With the Shadow Operatives run ragged, Erebus had been worn down to the size it was back when it was first encountered, still towering over them. The ground was littered knee-high with amorphous blackness that had been shaved off the monster like the wool off a nigh-unknowable, horror-from-beyond sheep.

 

“No need to press yourselves further.” Elizabeth waved the Shadow Operatives behind her, leaving no one between her and Erebus. “This part is more of a routine.”

 

Flipping her grimoire open, she summoned Thanatos one last time. The Persona threw its head back with a savage roar, calling a Megidolaon down onto Erebus. The sphere of destruction plowed into the monster like a hydraulic press before its structure completely broke down, reducing Erebus to an inoffensive black mist with the rest of its remains.

 

“Now then...” Elizabeth said finally as she snapped her grimoire shut, dismissing Thanatos. “Without any further adieu, we should work quickly with the seal.”

 

She strode to the foot of the giant gates, with Aigis following her the closest.

 

“It may take time, but I should have no trouble pulling our enemy's soul here from your world.” Elizabeth looked over her shoulder to Aigis as she came to a stop. “The power you wield, inherited from him, may resonate with his soul in some sense. If you wish for him to return, it may ease the process.”

 

She looked up at the petrified Makoto, a distant blip in her vision. “It may be the only way to complete it at all. If I were to work alone, Minazuki's power may cancel out my own.”

 

Aigis nodded without hesitation, the rest of the team looking on as she solemnly closed her eyes. Allowing themselves some indulgence of their own, the former members of S.E.E.S. made their own wish for their friend to return.

 

The odd one out was Labrys.

 

_He's their friend..._ She thought. _It wouldn't be right for me ta join in..._

 

She walked a safe distance away from the rest of her friends as she watched, knowing that even in a group as accepting as this, she would still in some way feel like she didn't belong.


	13. Chapter 12: A Wretch in the Works

Chapter 12: A Wretch in the Works

 

Feeling her determination substantially drained, Marie braced herself as the two Shadow mecha sent by Shadow Fuuka charged towards her. Their bodies stood stiffly upright as they rolled forward on wheels under their feet, like windup toys.

 

“Take her out and the rest will be crippled!” Shadow Fuuka raved at its minions. Marie's eyes widened as the realization struck her.

 

 _It's not me they're after..._ She thought as the two machine Shadows zoomed past her, continuing on their beeline towards Rise.

 

“Look out!” Marie cried, throwing out a handful of lightning as a distraction. Rise's attention snapped to her as abruptly as the Shadows doubled back to kill her.

 

The goddess tried her best to repel the advancing Shadows with an increasingly weakening stream of electricity, finally giving out when the two were right on top of her. The first looked down at her with its blank expression as it raised its massive sword, pausing only for a moment before bringing it down.

 

“MARIE-CHAN!”

 

She felt the sword cut her down, her life dispersing through the fresh, gaping wound. Marie dropped to her knees before the rest of her body slumped forward and hit the ground.

 

 _So..._ She thought to herself as she felt her body's warmth seep away into the cold concrete. _This is how it ends?_

 

_If I die, even if it's not forever... will they be alright?_

 

The idea of her death causing harm to the world darkened her seemingly final thoughts.

 

_I'm sorry, Yu. I should've listened._

 

The other Shadow, unsatisfied either with its lack of action or its victim's state, readied to follow up with a swing of its own.

 

Only for it to be knocked back with a harsh PING, its attack bouncing back at it upon colliding with a barrier of light in the shape of a beehive. The towering robot was thrown onto its back, its stiff frame keeping it from recovering.

 

A few seconds after the barrier dissipated, Marie's eyes fluttered open, feeling herself being pulled up as she felt life surge into her again.

 

“Get up, Marie-chan! We're not done yet!”

 

As her vision slowly came back into focus, Marie saw a pink glow coming from behind her. The moment she was brought to her feet, she turned around to find her saviour to be a projection of Rise already fading away after completing its task.

 

Whatever the navigator had done to rejuvenate her, Marie felt herself back in peak condition. Still, even after getting used to the fog she was fighting in, it still sapped away at her slowly but surely.

 

Marie clenched her fist and spread her feet, almost imitating Chie's fighting pose as the fallen machine Shadow was pulled to its feet by its partner.

 

The goddess knew she wouldn't be in top form for long, but until then, she'd show these Shadows the power of divine intervention.

 

Yosuke's attention was taken away from the fight for a crucial moment thanks to the ensuing blinding flash and deafening explosion, unaware of the gigas Shadow about to crush him into paste.

 

“Watch out, Yosuke!”

 

The team's second-in-command turned just in time to see Chie charge the wrestler Shadow and boot it into orbit. After dispatching the Shadow, Chie snapped at her friend.

 

“This is no time to get distracted! We've gotta focus on-!”

 

Her tirade was cut short by the surprise appearance of a seeker Shadow, the giant phantom head triggering a shriek and a fit of terror in the young martial artist. Chie fell back onto her rear, eyes wide as her body tried instinctively to scramble away from the floating Shadow.

 

Luckily for her, none of the Shadow's many eyes had noticed Yosuke rushing in to repay his teammate. Sticking one of his knives into the nearest floating eye, he stood completely still as the Shadow's attention snapped to him. The giant head's expression scrunched up before throwing its mouth wide open to attack Yosuke with a Ziodyne.

 

“Takehaya Susano-o!”

 

The green-suited Persona appeared in an instant, holding the Shadow's mouth open with his right arm and foot. As the Shadow strained to snap its glaring weak spot shut, Susano-o stuck his left hand inside before jokingly waggling his sunglasses at one of the seeker's terrified eyes. The Persona lobbed a contained Garudyne into the seeker's mouth before throwing himself onto the top of its head, snapping its jaws shut as it was pinned to the ground.

 

From on top of his perch, Yosuke's Persona gave a dramatic pose as it let the Garudyne in the Shadow's mouth loose, shredding it from the inside before the giant head exploded. Bowing to his audience – specifically, Chie – Susano-o extended his hand to the young woman still knocked off her feet.

 

Yosuke rolled his eyes as he dismissed his Persona before Chie could accept the hand. He grumbled as he pulled her up before running off to find Teddie.

 

“Maybe take your own advice?” he called back before turning his irritation inward.

 

_Damn showoff._

 

Meanwhile, on the far side of the battlefield, Nyarlathotep felt a disturbance in the fabric of the unconscious, barely paying attention to Margaret's latest attempt at subduing him.

 

“No...” the maw of his torso almost quivered in quiet denial. Raising his hand, he stopped an incoming card that Margaret was using to attack, crushing the supposed deadly weapon like ordinary cardboard.

 

Flicking the crumpled ball back at the attendant, the Crawling Chaos addressed Sho with the authority that would make anyone but the petulant boy quake in their boots.

 

“Minazuki. Erebus has been dismantled. It seems your desire to torment them has backfired.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sho spat, like shrugging off a nagging parent. “So are ya just gonna mouth off, or are you gonna get off your ass and fix it?”

 

Nyarlathotep's maw rumbled with a low growl.

 

“Neither. They live because you toyed with them. This is your mistake to rectify. Now go, and you will be granted the power and opportunity for the revenge you seek.”

 

Yu's eyes widened as Sho laughed in approval. “About damn time! Gotta go, boy scout!”

 

The silver-haired wild card charged Sho as he gave a one-finger salute, making one last attempt to cripple his enemy and make things easier on the Shadow Operatives once they received him. That hope was dashed as the cackling madman was teleported away, only an instant after Yu made a swing for Sho's legs.

 

“Prideful gnat.” Nyarlathotep's body twitched with what one could only read as disgust. “Of all the calls of despair, hatred, misery that could have reached me, it was a broken weapon with the self-awareness of an infant.”

 

He brought his left arm up, with Yosuke flinching at the thought of the Crawling Chaos himself finally deciding to get his hands dirty with the rest of the Investigation Team. The youths were both relieved and surprised when Nyarlathotep laid his palm flat, at which point the Shadows throughout the parking lot seized up, from the lowest minion Shadows to the enduring Shadow Yu and Fuuka. Without any sign of protest, a clench of the fist purged the Shadows from the parking lot, collecting into a black pearl the size of an apple as the monster slowly reopened his hand.

 

“Still, for all his faults, his abilities in combat cannot be ignored.” Nyarlathotep gripped the pearl as he raised his arm over his head. “Let us see if the power that awaits him outpaces mere copies.”

 

The Crawling Chaos threw the pearl at his feet, causing it to shatter and disperse a black cloud of smoke.

 

“Get ready, everyone...” Yu warned his friends, gripping his sword in preparation for what may come.

 

Soon, the black smoke began to disperse, revealing nine identical copies of Sho. The only difference the fakes had from the original being the yellow eyes of a Shadow. Other than that, each of the nine had the same set of swords, the same scar, the same red hair, and the same grin that showed nothing but gleeful sadism.

 

“ **NOW it's Sho-time!** ” the platoon of Shadow Shos cackled in unison.

 

“Too bad...” Yu challenged, a small smirk of his own on his face. “They say I'm quite the Sho-stopper.”

 

Naoto sighed, hiding her expression behind her cap. “Not now, senpai...”

 

~

 

A slight hitch in the tune Elizabeth had been humming for almost a minute broke Aigis' concentration, turning to her one-time advisor.

 

“Oh dear...” The attendant's usual tone was betrayed by the fear in her eyes “It seems our motivations are insufficient for him.”

 

The freefall Yukari's heart felt was halted by a surprise terror.

 

“Well, ain't that a shame.”

 

The Shadow Operatives whipped their heads around to see Sho standing knee high in Erebus' cloudy, amorphous remains. The scarred redhead's eyes perked up at the sight of Aigis and Labrys standing side-by-side.

 

“ _Two_ toasters!” He called out with glee as he reached into his pants' pocket. “Think I'll make you smoke each other first!”

 

He pulled his hand back out to reveal the same remote he had used to control Aigis, and presumably Labrys. Tauntingly waving it in his hand, he put his thumb to one of the buttons, ready to press.

 

“Grrrrr!”

 

“What the-?!”

 

Leaping from his hiding place in Erebus' remains, Koromaru latched onto Sho's hand, digging his teeth into human flesh for the first time in years. The youth snarled as he struggled against the dog, losing his grip on the remote to Koromaru's mouth.

 

“Damn mutt!” Sho cursed, taking a swing at the Shiba with his foot which Koromaru easily dodged. The dog bounded back to the rest of his group, laying the remote at Mitsuru's feet like a pair of slippers before taking his place against Sho with his friends.

 

Mitsuru eyed the remote, the telling similarity to the one Ikutsuki used during his betrayal turned her sore guts. Without taking her eyes off it, the executive crushed the remote under her boot. She looked back up at Sho just in time for him to bitterly give up nursing his bitten hand. His cheap trick had been ruined and he was hopelessly outnumbered, so she saw no harm in trying to stall for time until Elizabeth fixed whatever problem she was having with the seal.

 

“Shuji Ikutsuki had a similar downfall.”

 

Mitsuru bringing up the name of the man behind both Sho and those who became Strega did little to provoke him. At most, the idea he was being taunted made him indignant.

 

“For someone who suffered at his atrocities, you're far too eager to follow in his footsteps.”

 

Sho huffed blithely. “Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't give a hoot what that old coot wanted.”

 

Pulling a complete 180 in attitude, he savagely tore one of his swords out of its scabbard, brandishing it at the designated villain of his story.

 

“All I care about is paying the Kirijo back for the shit they pulled on me!” His feet were rooted into the ground, and even without Koromaru hiding in them, the blackness around Sho's ankles seemed to stir. “I was only worth it to them if I could fight harder than the last day! And when I thought it was all over, they threw me in a cell to rot!”

 

Junpei callously snorted.

 

_Can't say I blame them._

 

Labrys, on the other hand, was far more vocal.

 

“Hey! The Kirijo hurt me too! They made me _kill_ every last one of my sisters just to see if I was ready to fight, and when I begged them to stop, they barely even noticed!”

 

Any sympathy the average person was expected to show at Labrys' story was nowhere to be seen in Sho's expression. The boy looked like she had just told him something trivial like a boy pulling her hair. Though his past actions should have been proof enough that he cared little for synthetic life.

 

Perhaps that extended to any life besides his own, if even that.

 

“Duh!” Sho scoffed. “They didn't care cause none of you were worth _scrap_! Nyahahahahahaa!”

 

The less composed members of the Shadow Operatives had to resist the urge to strike Sho dead that very instant, whether they needed him or not.

 

“You're pathetic.” Akihiko spat, reassured that – if nothing else – the mistakes he had made in his own life started out with good intentions, rather than spite and deranged sadism.

 

Sho's froze. “Say that again?” he asked as his eye twitched.

 

“You want the people who hurt you to pay,” Ken joined in. “But you have no problem doing what they did to others, or even worse!”

 

“You say they forced you to fight,” Aigis' hard gaze deflected Sho glaring daggers at her. “Yet you show no concern for those who were forced to fight you. Do you know if they are still alive? Do you even care?”

 

“Shut up...” Sho's teeth began to chatter.

 

Labrys didn't feel like obliging him.

 

“You made me a puppet!”

 

“Shut up...”

 

“You made me fight my friends!”

 

“Shut up!”

 

“You're no better than the Kirijo!”

 

“ShutupshutupshutupSHUTUPSHADDAP!!”

 

The scar on Sho's face looked like it was about to tear open at his outburst, but everyone's attention was more drawn to the remains of Erebus swirling towards Sho like the centre of a vortex.

 

The seething young man only started to notice when it was too late. The darkness bore down on him, surging into his body as he twisted and turned either from agonizing pain or the sheer force with which it invaded him.

 

The Shadow Operatives looked at each other while keeping a safe distance, uncertain as to what exactly they had wrought.

 

“Hah... hah...”

 

With whatever was left of Erebus absorbed by Sho, the boy panted heavily on bended knee, using the sword he already had out to prop himself up.

 

“Hah... hah... heh... heheh...”

 

The panting gave way to manic laughter as he pulled himself up, his head reared back like a zombie as his voice almost seem to reverb.

 

“So _this_ is what it's like?” He said to himself. “Nah... I'm hooked up to something way bigger.”

 

As Sho's vision snapped to the Shadow Operatives, his eyes explosively flashed red.

 

“Time ta put you down!

 

_AHRIMAN!”_

 

Mitsuru and her team braced themselves for what might charge at them, but the new arrival appeared towering over the puny humans.

 

Sho's Persona took the form of a six story tall man clad in black plate mail. Its head was that of a lion, while its scaly red hands and the leathery dragon wings coming from its back gave it away as reptilian. In its right hand, it held an enormous broadsword with a blade as wide as the beast's head that appeared to be made out of burning obsidian. The Shadow Operatives only got to watch in awe and terror before Ahriman's first attack sent them scattering, with Elizabeth stuck where she was, focused on her original plan.

 

“I cannot break my concentration!” She warned over her shoulder. “Hold him off until the exchange begins!”


	14. Chapter 13: The Loved and Lost

Chapter 13: The Loved and Lost

 

As Margaret did her best to keep Nyarlathotep from reaching the Investigation Team, the Inaba youths were themselves kept back by the constant blitz the Shadow Shos had been subjecting them to.

 

“They just keep comin'!” Kanji grumbled as he shielded Naoto from one of the Sho's attacks.

 

Popping out of cover, Naoto fired off three round into the nearest Shadow, which only seemed to tickle at best. “We cannot keep this up forever!”

 

“Then we hold them off as long as we can,” Yu said as he helped a downed Yosuke up as another Sho retreated to regrow its freshly severed arm. “Hope Elizabeth and Mitsuru's team can free their friend.”

 

Noticing a Sho coming from behind, Yosuke flung himself past Yu to ram his fist knife-first into the Shadow's scar. As the enemy retreated, the two team members went back to back to stave off the next three to come after them.

 

“Well, I hate to say it, partner...” Yosuke lamented over his shoulder. “But it looks like this is the end.”

 

His eyes on the Shadows circling them, the leader diverted his second's pessimism with a semi-rhetorical question. “Any regrets?”

 

“A few...” The magician joked. “But hey, at least I won't have to explain the damages to my dad. You?”

 

Taking some solace in Yosuke still trying to put on a brave face, Yu felt it was only right to be honest.

 

“Well, I could have gone a year without us having a murder spree or a rogue god to take care of...” he admitted. _Maybe just leave out the crossdressing..._

 

“How about it?” Yosuke called out to the rest of the team before the Sho he injured came back with a vengeance. “Anything you guys want to get off your chests?”

 

Teddie stepped forward by sending a fridge-sized block of ice sliding into Yosuke's would-be attacker like an angry bowling pin.

 

“I for one _bear_ no regrets!” He said with his mascot face scrunched into a determined frown. “Things may be _grizzly_ , but at least Labby-chan won't _bear_ witness to her knight's fall!”

 

“You're just as scared as the rest of us, aren't you?”

 

Teddie broke out in a fit of panicked bawling. “IT'S IM _PAWS_ IBLE NOT TO BE!”

 

“Way to help morale, Yosuke!” Chie scolded him as she had Haraedo knock Teddie's ice block and the Sho attached to it into a pair that were harassing Marie and Rise.

 

Yosuke groaned in frustration. If they were doomed to meet their end here, he wasn't about to let Chie throw him under the bus without taking her with him.

 

“Alright, Chie. Anything _you_ feel like sharing while we're at it?”

 

The martial artist was so badly caught off guard, she almost missed a Shadow coming at her from behind before Yukiko intercepted it with a stream of fire.

 

“Why are you asking me?!” She defensively shouted back as she took out her frustrations on a Shadow with a few extra scars. “First I wanna know what the Shadow we found trying to eat you said!”

 

“That had nothing to do with you!”

 

“Bullshit it didn't!”

 

The two's argument growing more heated had the welcome benefit of making them fight that much harder, whether to vent frustrations or just punctuate their own shouting.

 

As Kanji and Naoto moved in to help Marie in defending Rise, the navigator thought it was only fair to poke at Kanji's weakness one last time, if only to take focus off of Yosuke and Chie's bickering.

 

“Your turn, Kanji!”

 

“The hell you mean?!” The tailor's response was angrier than she was expecting. Nowhere near the awkward sputtering she found both adorable and hilarious.

 

Before Rise could decide whether to make one last attempt to pry, Naoto – keeping an even tone – nipped the opportunity in the bud.

 

“Rise-san, I doubt this is helping our current predicament.”

 

 _Besides, we_ will _live to discuss this later._

 

While the rest of the team, in addition to Margaret, retreated to make a perimeter around Rise and Kouzeon, Yosuke and Chie were still going at their verbal back-and-forth while matching each other blow for blow against any Shadow Sho that came near.

 

“Honestly!” Chie snapped as Yosuke tried his best to wrangle against two Shos at once. “Have you _ever_ given me one..!”

 

She turned to deliver a swift roundhouse kick to the head of a Shadow trying to sneak up on her.

 

“Honest..!”

 

She turned back to see Yosuke knocked down. One of the Shos had moved on, but the other was inches away from finishing him off.

 

“Compliment?!” She yelled as her frustration with her teammate exploded. Chie leapt to Yosuke's side, landing with her left leg ahead. Using her left foot as a pivot, she pulled back her right leg as she turned counterclockwise to bring her right side to the front. With the Shadow only about a foot away from her body, Chie shot out her right leg like a cannonball, catching the gold-eyed Sho in the face and sending it careening through the wall of the Junes parking lot.

 

Yosuke took a deep breath at his near death experience before looking up at his saviour. Chie stood looking straight ahead, breathing just as heavily as him with her leg still outstretched. Her balance was rock solid, with even her heavy breathing unlikely to cause her to even tremble.

 

Gulping, Yosuke took in the sight before him before finally speaking.

 

“Well... I'm really liking your legs right now...”

 

Chie's face reddened at that comment, lowering her right leg before helping Yosuke to his own feet.

 

“See?” She said before prying her hand off his and jogging over to the rest of the team. “That wasn't so tough!”

 

The chemistry in the air brought a small smile to Margaret's face. Even though Nyarlathotep had not decided to involve himself in the fight after she fell back, the nine Shos on the field appeared indestructible, even if they were merely copies.

 

 _I suppose, in truth, he is fighting through them..._ She thought to herself before turning back to the rest of her companions.

 

_If this truly is the end, then it must be reached with a clear conscience, no?_

 

“If I may join in on this...” The attendant spoke up. “I confess I once stole a kiss from your leader.”

 

A number of the team members were shocked as Yu tried his best not to sigh.

 

“Senpai!” Rise was in a state of disbelief, but with a refreshingly sparse amount of jealousy involved.

 

“It's true.” The leader said honestly, knowing how well Yosuke's attempts to cover his own ass had gone in the past.

 

Marie arched an eyebrow before turning to Margaret. “Isn't that against the law?”

 

“Oh well...” Yukiko almost shrugged with how surprisingly well she took the revelation. “Either way, she won't do it again.”

 

Those last few words carried only slightly more iron than her own blood, but Margaret understood her meaning. She admitted that, after barely interacting with the team as a whole, it was at least a pleasant experience to face their finale without any secrecy.

 

“That, I promise you.”

 

~

 

With every thrust and parry, Mitsuru's insides screamed in protest. The years she had spent rigorously training in the art of swordfighting, along with all the time she had spent fighting the monsters of the human unconscious, seemed to only allow her to barely keep up with Sho.

 

As unrefined as she believed he was since she first saw him, the boy came at her with near superhuman strength and speed. She, on the other hand, was only protected by a thin layer of body armour and a sharp but brittle rapier. Knowing that her only chance was to outlast the rogue wild card until whatever was holding Elizabeth's spell back started working, Mitsuru had devised a strategy of directing the force of incoming blows along the length of her own sword and redirecting it with the bulkier guard at the hilt, rather than trying to stop the blade directly by parrying, which would probably just result in her only weapon being broken like a piece of chalk.

 

The rest of the operatives, meanwhile, had their hands full with Ahriman. The colossal Persona's attention was focussed on its most direct challengers, Akihiko and Aigis, but the rest had to run interference just so that the boxer wasn't immediately flattened. While Ken and Koromaru did the grunt work of attacking Ahriman with Kala-Nemi's massive frame and a slow burn of constant fire respectively, Labrys had Ariadne try to restrain the titan with her string, and Junpei had his own Persona play reverse baseball by trying to knock away Ahriman's sword every time it took a swing at Akihiko and Aigis. Yukari had the job with the least risk involved, but having to juggle healing alongwith trying to get a clean shot to cripple Sho without killing him was no daunting task.

 

In all likelyhood, it was only thanks to Fuuka and Juno's support that she was able to keep focussed.

 

There was a high pitched whine as Sho's two swords ground against the flat edges of Mitsuru's rapier, with the executive trying to force her sword upwards to catch her opponent's weapons with her sword's guard. But the vessel of Erebus simplypushed through her defence this time, pinching her blade between his own before delivering a hard kick to her gut.

 

The blow knocked Mitsuru back a good few meters, along with making her lose her grip on her sword as Sho flung it aside. Seeing their leader downed with a superpowered maniac coming after her, Aigis called to Labrys before breaking off from the fight with Ahriman.

 

“Mitsuru-san!” Aigis sent Athena charge shield-first into Sho before following up with a burst of gunfire from her fingertips. Labrys pulled Mitsuru to her feet, noticing a troubling dent in her armour.

 

“Labrys,” Mitsuru brought the anti-Shadow weapon's attention to her face. “I will do what I can against his Persona. You two have a far better chance at stalling him than I do.”

 

The use of 'stall' instead of 'stop' was not lost on Labrys or Aigis. The latter tossed Mitsuru her lost sword before she went back to take their place in the fight against Ahriman.

 

“Oh?” Sho mockingly pouted. “The queen Kirijo bitch doesn't wanna play anymore? Maybe she'll get along with _this_ dog! Fenrir!”

 

Without Ahriman disappearing, a massive black wolf with glowing yellow eyes came into being, charging after Mitsuru towards the Shadow Operatives. Akihiko intercepted Fenrir by having Caesar hack at one of the charging beast's legs, which only served to make it pick a new target.

 

“Takeba!” Akihiko called out to Yukari as he and Mitsuru sprinted back to Junpei, Ken, and Koromaru's battle with the lion-headed lizard man. “We could use your help on the front right now!”

 

“Got it!” Yukari turned to the navigator before following. “Stay with Elizabeth, Fuuka-chan.”

 

Meanwhile, Aigis and Labrys were taking turns trying to wear Sho down, with no sign of success. Once Aigis tagged in, she decided to use her last chance at turning the tide.

 

“Entering Orgia Mode!”

 

As her limiters were cast aside, she blazed around her opponent with her jets wildly flaring. Aigis strafed Sho as he was barraged by every piece of weaponry in her chassis. Even if the insane amount of firepower she was using would have made short work of a normal person or Shadow, the rogue wild card took the punishment like the bullets were barely even rubber.

 

Before too long, Aigis could feel her body begin to overheat from the strain she had put it through, even though Sho – while visibly worn down by her assault – was still standing and eager to chase her. At the edge of her limit, Aigis jetted to a safe distance before summoning Athena to her side. The evolved Persona then took on its original form of Palladion, in the shape of a massive cannon seated on Aigis' shoulder.

 

“Maximum charge!”

 

 _What the?!_ Sho recoiled at the sight before him, only to shrug off any doubt in his mind as he stood his ground and smirked in the face of the charging cannon.

 

If the Erebus Avatar was bluffing, Aigis showed no sign of falling for it. By the time that Palladion had completed charging, heat was venting off of the cannon and out of the gaps in Aigis' outer shell.

 

“Firing!”

 

An electric blue beam of intense energy blasted out of the barrel, streaking towards its target until the light consumed him.

 

Behind Aigis, her arm struggling to hold Palladion straight, the slowly battered Ahriman fizzled before fading away.

 

“Phew! One down!” Junpei cheered trying to catch his breath. “Got any more where tha- URK!” only for him to be swept aside by a Garudyne from the still-kicking Fenrir.

 

“Hah... Nice try... blondie.”

 

The Palladion cannon had done more than any of the individual Operatives could have done, and yet it still wasn't enough to keep Sho down for the count. The wicked redhead snarled as trails of black smoke came off him, even though his clothes seemed completely unharmed.

 

Aigis tried to raise the cannon for one last shot, only for her to fall over on one knee. Palladion crashed with its user before disappearing.

 

“S-systems...” Aigis barely managed “shutting down.”

 

Her systems seemed to smoke as she lay immobile on bended knees. With the rest of the operatives busy fighting Fenrir with their own flagging energy, Sho had a sitting target to shred to pieces.

 

“I'mma _wreck_ ya, bitch!” He screamed towards Aigis' defenceless body at an inhuman pace

 

... only for a pull on his collar to stop him just a meter away from his kill. The redhead turned his head to see, out of the corner of his eye, Labrys' red hand attached to a chain, and holding him back by the scruff of his neck.

 

“Git ovah here!”

 

She pulled, reeling in her arm and Sho with it. With Aigis out of comission, Elizabeth indisposed, and the rest of the Shadow Operatives trying to ward off Fenrir while running on fumes, this was her battle now.

 

Once Sho got close enough, Labrys released her grip, letting his momentum carry him to her as she pulled back her axe for a hopefully crippling swing. Mid-arc, Sho turned to face Labrys, crossing his swords to catch her axe. The rockets on her greataxe propelled the massive weapon with more force than any man or machine could have done on their own. The blades collided with the force of a sonic boom, with Labrys bearing down on Sho's guard as his dual swords screeched in protest, sending sparks flying from the point of contact.

 

Sho's scowl and grinding teeth turned to a grin at the sound of Fenrir howling.

 

“Might wanna take one last look!” he taunted, nodding over her shoulder. Labrys' face twisted in rage at the taunt and had her axe use all of its fuel to break through Sho's guard, breaking one if his swords and sending him back a good few feet.

 

Labrys took the reprieve to turn back and see Fenrir standing over the Shadow Operatives, who had run themselves to exhaustion fighting the monsters they had in such a short span of time and on such little sleep. Even Fuuka seemed to be burnt out as she hung her head, on her knees with Juno nowhere to be seen.

 

“Labrys!” Mitsuru called. “Don't worry about us! You have to keep Minazuki away and we can still slow it down!”

 

Labrys felt her body go cold at the dilemma.

 

“I...”

 

She turned back to Sho, casting aside his broken sword and taking the remaining one in both hands.

 

Both of the threats on the field couldn't be ignored, but there was no way she could manage both of them at once.

 

_Unless..._

 

Avatar of Erebus or not, if Sho could use his Persona to fight a separate battle, why couldn't she?

 

_Here goes nothin'._

 

“Go, Ariadne!”

 

The robotic Persona appeared in front of the prone Akihiko, just as Fenrir was about to finish him off. Both of her hands shot out, summoning bindings around the great wolf's legs before doing the same around its muzzle as it howled and raged.

 

Ariadne's bindings had only been capable of barely slowing Ahriman down. Fenrir on the other hand was almost as worn down as its enemies, as well as Ariadne's namesake being famous for bringing about the demise of a legendary beast (even if it wasn't in anywhere near a direct way).

 

With her friends safe for the moment, Labrys turned her attention back to Sho. The youth came sprinting at her with even less refinement in his fighting style, but with more than as much raw power to match. The two clashed blades as Ariadne kept Fenrir subdued in the background.

 

With her axe out of fuel, Labrys had to wield it completely under her own power, slowing down and weakening her attacks. Once Sho had gotten a feel for his opponent's ability, he caught a swing coming from the left for his head. Not breaking eye contact with Labrys or his gear-grinding smile, Sho leaned to the right, then shifting himself to loop around her axe and bringing himself up just as it passed over his head. Labrys' eyes swole in horror. She was wide open.

 

As Sho came up, he stuck his sword through one of the gaps in her axe's blades for the jets. Strong footing and a flick of his sword sent the unwieldy weapon flying out of Labrys' hands. The anti-Shadow weapon barely had time to lower her visor before Sho knocked it off her face with a follow-up kick, sending her across the battlefield and closer to Fenrir and a struggling Ariadne.

 

Sho stalked toward his unarmed opponent, spinning his sword every few steps. On her knees, Labrys looked over her shoulder to see Ariadne on the verge of giving up her struggle. She turned back to Sho for one last-ditch effort. She set her sights on Sho's scarred face, focussing on the target in the middle of his punchable face.

 

_Now!_

 

Ariadne released all her remaining strength and pulled on the string, crushing Fenrir's bones before the two enemies faded away.

 

Bracing her left arm against her right hand, Labrys fired her left fist – the only weapon she had left – at Sho, with the chain tethering it to her body clinking as it soared straight and true.

 

Sho only had to slide out of the way to make her last hope crumble to dust.

 

The redhead turned to face the still-going chain, catching Labrys' terrified expression as he brought his sword over his head.

 

The chain hitched as Labrys tried desperately to reel it in, but it was too late. Sho brought down his sword, carving through the chain like a chainsaw through a twig. Labrys cried out, if not from pain, then from the shock of losing a limb, especially when she saw the severed red hand bounce as it hit the ground.

 

“Should I even joke about this?” Sho asked Labrys as he picked up the now unmoving chain. His voice dripping with a tone so uncharacteristically thoughtful anyone could tell it was fake. “I mean you've really been through a lot. It'd be pretty _disarming_! AHAHAHAHAAAAA!”

 

Sho swayed with his cruel laughter as he wrapped the cut chain around his hand, closing the gap between him and Labrys with each turn of his wrist. Labrys felt herself lurch forward with each pull until Sho had the tip of his sword at her face.

 

“Gotta say, it's been a blast, but you're kinda in my way.”

 

Sho put his sword to her neck before reeling his weapon back like a baseball bat, ready for a decapitating swing.

 

“How about a little off the top?”

 

Labrys lay there, defeated, looking down at Sho's feet, where her severed arm lay. She saw him begin to swing his arm forward, her world slowing down to drink in her final moments.

 

She hadn't lead the happiest life, but Aigis and her friends had made the last day or so the highlight of her existence. In her ruined state, there was little more she could do besides wish the best for them.

 

_Please, whatever happens to me..._

 

_Let them get him back..._

 

Labrys closed her eyes and waited for the end to come.

 

 

 

...

 

The end seemed to be taking its time.

 

 

 

“Ngh!”

 

The clang of a sword hitting the ground, accompanied by the clinking of an unraveling chain falling link by link, made Labrys open her eyes. In front of her was Sho, with his body seized rigid and his arms thrown out to his sides.

 

And floating a good five feet off the ground.

 

“It works!” Elizabeth cheered “Excelsius!”

 

Sho began to float higher, now also moving over Labrys' head, towards the seal.

 

“You!” Sho roared as he passed over the recovering Shadow Operatives. “You're all the same! Kirijo dogs that wanna lock me away! I'll get outta here one day, and then I'll... I'll-!”

 

“Please do put a shoe in it!” The attendant silenced the thrashing man. “Your wretched scheme is undone, and your black soul IS MINE!”

 

Even as he rose to be a barely visible speck in their vision, Sho raged, screaming bloody murder. Though it wasn't out of fear. The youth had no problems with his own death being the end result of his and Nyarlathotep's plan. But there was no slaughter with this end, no one to share in his pain, and the lack of fulfillment tormented him in a way death never could.

 

“Bitch! I'll make you understand! I'll make all of ya-!”

 

A blinding flash of light marked Sho's transfer to the seal, silencing him forever. As the Shadow Operatives found the strength to rise to their feet again, the silence without Sho or Erebus was telling.

 

“... Did it work?” Ken broke the silence, turning to Elizabeth. The group was a good distance from the seal itself, as a result of pushing Ahriman and Fenrir back during the fight. Aigis, having recovered from her overheating, looked up at the seal, her eyes widening.

 

“Yes,” she pointed to the giant gates. “But look!”

 

The operatives looked up to see a familiar blue-haired boy, as real as any of them,

 

plummeting head-first to the ground, with no sign of slowing down.

 

“Ah...” Elizabeth was surprisingly flustered at the 'Now what?' that hung over their situation. “No matter. It will just take me a-”

 

“MAKOTO!!” The attendant was interrupted by an awestruck and terrified scream.

 

Yukari had started sprinting towards the door, her neck craned up at Makoto as he fell even closer to another untimely death. She had to catch him, it was all she could do. Maybe if she broke his fall, even if it broke _her_ , he would-

 

“Yukari-san!” Aigis had caught up to her friend, the two exchanging glances before she offered Yukari a foothold from her hands. Slowing down to a stop as she looked up at Makoto's unconscious, falling form, Yukari took Aigis' offer as she placed her right foot into the foothold. Aigis lifted her up over her shoulder with little effort, with Yukari hanging by her foot in Aigis' left hand, trying to steady herself by holding onto the android's left arm.

 

Aigis paused for a moment to calculate the trajectory of her throw.

 

“Ready?” She asked urgently.

 

“Do it!” Yukari urged her. She felt a wave of heat radiate off Aigis just before she let go of her arm.

 

Aigis threw out her arm, sending Yukari soaring like a javelin towards the door to Nyx. Wind screamed past her ears, her eyes beginning to water. Calling on her experience with stunt work, Yukari rolled forward, now sailing towards the seal feet-first.

 

The closer Yukari got to the door, the more visible Makoto was. Once the door looked too close for comfort, she pulled her legs in to soften the impact, focussing on her boyfriend's falling body.

 

_Don't miss... Please GOD don't let me miss!_

 

Makoto's naked body hit her chest. She wrapped her arms around him like a vice before the two of them hit the door.

 

Yukari's world seemed to stand still for a moment. He was back, in her arms, alive.

 

_Not for long if I can't slow us down!_

 

Using her limited understanding of physics, Yukari leaned forward, causing her and Makoto to brush against the seal. To try and slow her descent, Yukari kicked off the door, turning their sheer plummet into a sloped descent.

 

Whether her reasoning was sound or not was a moot point, as Aigis was able to catch the two of them in midair thanks to her jets. The force of the landing still sent three of them crashing to the ground on impact, with Elizabeth and the rest of the Shadow Ops rushing in to see for themselves.

 

“Yukari-san,” Aigis began, the three of them finally at a complete stop. “Are you alright?”

 

The archer let out a breath she had been holding in.

 

“I'm fine. Thanks, Aigis. But what about..?”

 

As the rest of the group gathered around the trio, Yukari looked down at Makoto's face. He hadn't seemed to have aged a day since the moment he had appeared to have fallen asleep. His hair was in just as much need of a haircut, his expression that same subtle blend of weariness, kindness, and stoicism.

 

The fact that he still hadn't stirred began to worry Yukari as she gave him a gentle shake.

 

“M... Makoto?”


	15. Chapter 14: Forward

Chapter 14: Forward

 

Back in Inaba, as his minions made their final push against the Investigation Team, Nyarlathotep gave a weary and disgusted sigh. Just as Kanji was about to bash an approaching Shadow Sho's head in, the entire platoon vanished with a swipe of the crawling chaos' hand.

 

“What the-?!”

 

Margaret hummed to herself. “It seems my assumption was correct.”

 

The great enemy's head tilted forward in a nod.

 

“Not only has Erebus been defeated, but the boy I sent to be its avatar has been sealed, along with its remains. The boy has failed, as I should have foreseen. I have no further reason to stay here.”

 

He looked directly at Margaret. “You. Tell your master that our bet is still ongoing.”

 

The attendant didn't bother to nod, but Nyarlathotep paid no mind as he turned his attention to Yu.

 

“And you, Narukami. You have made gains for humanity, but a human life, no matter how grand, is always temporary. Man's doom is inevitable. Whether or not you live to see it is of little concern.”

 

The giant pharaoh exploded into a black cloud, slowly dissipating into nothing along with the red fog.

 

For the first time in the night, Marie took a deep, unlabored breath of air.

 

“Then...” she said finally “it's over.”

 

“Phew!” both Chie and Kanji let out a grateful sigh of relief. “Does this mean we're good for this year? No more psychos or freak weather to worry about?”

 

“I sure hope so...” Yosuke remarked, shuddering at the idea of Junes being even more wrecked than it already was tonight.

 

“Great job, everyone,” Yu congratulated his friends. “I think we've all earned a good night's sleep after this.”

 

“Wait, sensei!” Teddie held Yu back as he turned to leave. “I wanna stay a bit longer, to see if Labby-chan's alright...”

 

Yu nodded understandingly. Though the mention of Labrys made Naoto wonder.

 

“Mitsuru-san and the others... if they succeeded, what could be taking them so long?”

 

~

 

“M... Maktoto..?” Yukari lightly shook the blue-haired boy, with the only result being his head limply turning.

 

“No...” She cradled his head, pulling it into her chest. Tears started welling in her eyes as she begged for the worst to not be true.

 

“Please!” Yukari sobbed as she held him even closer. “Please just wake up!”

 

In the end, it seemed that all their effort had bought them was false hope and another corpse.

 

The rest of the Shadow Operatives surrounded her, save for Junpei, who quietly cursed before walking away to process things on his own, and Elizabeth, who sighed in resignation at her quest's bittersweet success.

 

_If nothing else,_ she thought, _I hope he is at last at peace, granted the true rest that-_

 

“mmph...”

 

A muffled grunt drew eyes and shocked gasps from all around.

 

Yukari held Makoto out to make sure she hadn't gone delirious, never minding the reason why his voice may have been muffled.

 

“Makoto?!”

 

The former seal's eyes sleepily fluttered open, his grey eyes coming into focus after a few seconds of blinking.

 

“Yu... Yukari?”

 

His voice was the same as she had remembered. Quiet, while warm, and just the right amount of rasp.

 

“Yes.” She said, wiping her tears away. “It's alright.”

 

Makoto looked around him to see all the familiar faces.

 

“But... how?”

 

“You saved the world, man.” Junpei said, coming back into the circle. “No way we wouldn't return the favour someday.”

 

Makoto gave a small smile before his eyelids drooped shut again, any worries his friends had put to rest by the subtle rise and fall of his naked chest.

 

“At last,” Mitsuru smiled as she removed her fur coat, offering it to Yukari. “I feel that we can finally move forward, with no regrets.”

 

Akihiko frowned to himself. The night's events had shown that there was plenty for him to still regret. Burying that for now, he nodded to Mitsuru, at least enjoying this victory.

 

“Elizabeth-san...” Ken distracted the attendant, who seemed oddly interested in watching Aigis and Yukari drape the white pelt over Makoto's shoulders. “If Erebus was... _inside_ _Minazuki_ when he was sealed, could that be a problem in the future?”

 

Elizabeth thoughtfully hummed to herself as she looked up at the seal. Only a moment passed until she shook her head.

 

“Curious…” She said finally. “For all the chaos that soul wished to weave, the Seal has a surprisingly peaceful air. Like a wild beast fed its first proper meal...”

 

Ken was surprised, wondering what Sho must have truly been motivated by as he rejoined his friends.

 

A good distance away, Labrys looked on at her friends with only the lightest shade of envy. They had their old friend back, and that's all that mattered.

 

_Guess they won't be needin' me no more..._ She thought to herself. Kneeling down to pick up her axe with her one remaining hand.

 

But her doubts were interrupted by Koromaru's bark.

 

Labrys looked behind her to see the white dog dragging her severed arm over to her like an iron newspaper. Koromaru set the limb at her feet before sitting with his tongue out and his tail eagerly wagging. Labrys smiled, kneeling down to pat the dog's head before picking up her arm, her axe already stowed on her back. The two walked back to their group together to be warped back to the real world.

 

And as for the new seal, the bound soul unconsciously hungered for the chains that had been forged by others, forming a tighter lock on the door than its predecessor had ever done.


	16. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

 

“LABBY-CHAAAAAAN!”

 

It wasn't long after the Shadow Operatives reappeared in the Junes parking lot that Labrys' maiming was noticed. Before anyone else had the chance to show their surprise or concern, Teddie made a screaming beeline to his so-called lady's side. Labrys, unlike nearly everyone else present, found his sobbing hysteria endearing and gave him as much time as he needed to either calm down or do his due diligence towards her.

 

Yu, meanwhile, had caught a glimpse of the legendary Makoto, sleeping in Mitsuru's fur coat as Yukari handed him off to the much stronger Aigis.

 

“So that's him, huh?” Yu found something familiar about the sleeping face, probably just a distant relative at one of the many schools he'd attended over the years.

 

“Yeah...” Junpei chuckled as he kept trying to process what they had accomplished in the past few hours. “He talked about as much back in the day, too.”

 

Yukiko tapped Yu on the shoulder, with Chie, Yosuke, Rise, and Marie behind her.

 

“Since we're done, I really need to be getting home.” she said, her eyes downcast. “My family was frozen when I was in the middle of talking to them, so they're probably wondering where I've gone.”

 

Yu nodded, waving Kanji and Naoto over while Yosuke pried Teddie away from Labrys.

 

“I understand, Amagi.” Mitsuru said, trying to avoid nursing her dented armour. “In all fairness, it is probably best we leave Inaba as soon as possible...”

 

“Ohhhh no you don't!” Yukari all but wagged her finger as she finished handing Makoto's sleeping form off to Aigis. “The two of you aren't in any shape to be travelling right now. We're checking both of you into the hospital and that's final!”

 

“Very well...” Mitsuru sighed, though smiling at the chance to stay in Inaba a while longer. “It's already been a long enough night for all of us. At the very least, letting Kikuno know of our whereabouts can wait until morning.”

 

Yosuke meanwhile had just finished dragging Teddie back to their group by his zipper. “I'm sure Teddie won't like it, but I'm guessing you guys'll want some alone time tomorrow. You know, to get your friend up to speed from the whole... being dead thing?”

 

Chie rolled her eyes. “Real smooth, Yosuke...”

 

“Hey, Ted.” Labrys' voice had the Shadow look up with the eyes of a stray puppy. “If it's all the same to Mitsuru-san, maybe you could show me around tomorrow? I mean...” She hurried to explain herself, worried she had offended the former S.E.E.S. “Makoto-san doesn't really know me and-”

 

“Labrys.” Mitsuru cut her off. “You're one of us, and you can be a part of this reunion if you want to be. Just as you shouldn't feel compelled to do so.”

 

Koromaru barked.

 

“Yeah...” Labrys admitted with mock reluctance. “I should give the guy a chance.”

 

She looked up at Teddie, who at the moment looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

 

“See ya at the hospital tomorrow, Ted!”

 

The top half of the Shadow's costume glowed with a steamy blush as hesheepishly nodded.

 

Elizabeth spoke as she looked into Makoto's shut eyes “Now that my quest has been brought to a joyful end, I had best return to my duties... if you will still have me.”

 

Margaret approached her sister. “It would probably be best either way for you to be somewhere he would know to find you.”

 

The younger attendant looked only slightly befuddled. “Either way, dear sister? It was you I was asking permission from.”

 

“It is not I you will need to seek approval from.” Margaret eyed her sister with the most subdued amusement. “Our master will be most interested to hear what you have to say for yourself.”

 

“I'll vouch for you.” Marie shrugged as she raised her hand. “Just don't get back to the room before me. I don't want you messing with my space.”

 

Elizabeth smiled and nodded at the offer. “Before I return to face the choir, however. Would the wounded party like to not have to walk to their destination?”

 

“You really think we'll say no?” Junpei asked, his tired state beginning to take a toll on his mood.

 

Farewells for the night were shared before the two groups parted ways, with the Shadow Operatives taken by Elizabeth to Inaba Municipal, and The Investigation taking a night stroll through the shopping district with Marie and Margaret in tow.

 

~

 

“I mean, ya gotta admit...” Chie continued to ramble as they passed the gas station. “It's kind of ironic that the girl missing an arm is gonna be the one leaving the hospital first.”

 

“I don't think he minds.” Yosuke sighed, Teddie dancing in a lovestruck trance a good distance ahead of the group. “Honestly, I don't know if him being off on his date is gonna make tomorrow easier or harder on me.”

 

Rise stifled a giggle. Her upperclassman's upcoming suffering was a welcome sign of life returning to normal.

 

The idol, along with Margaret and Marie, split off from the group after giving their 'good night's.

 

“I wished to tell you,” Margaret said to Rise as the three approached the entrance to the Velvet Room. “It was a unique sensation to feel your Persona aiding me in tonight's battle. Your friends' efforts would have likely ended in vain all too soon without your help.”

 

Rise blushed faintly at the compliment, only for her to be distracted by the storm of crashing noises coming from Daidara's workshop.

 

“There!” Marie said to herself as she came out of the shop dusting off her hands. “Pretty much how it was when I went in.”

 

The idol turned back to continue her conversation with Margaret, only for the attendant to have disappeared through a door Rise couldn't see.

 

“Hey...” Marie's voice took the reddish-haired girl's attention off of Margaret's disappearing act. Her head was ever so slightly hung as she walked in front of the door.

 

“I just... wanted to thank you.” She said, with a look that suggested she was about to get loud and defensive.

 

“Hm? What for?” With her days of mining for Yu's affection behind her, Rise wasn't one to keep track of who owed her.

 

“Come on...” Marie grumbled, avoiding eye contact. “Do I really have to say it? Just... thanks for having my back tonight, okay?”

 

Rise smiled at her friend's awkward thanks. “Aww... It was nothing, Marie-chan.”

 

“Still...” the other girl trailed off before finding a new topic. “Marge was being kind of rude, just leaving like that. I... I guess I can give you her farewell?”

 

“Or at least... I _think_ that's what it is.” She thought aloud. “I saw her do it the last time she was out.”

 

“Sure.” Rise shrugged, curious as to what this mystery could be. “If it makes you feel better, go for it, Marie-cha-!”

 

Rise's invitation was cut off as Marie jumped the gun and followed Margaret's example. The goddess gave Rise a brief, chaste kiss on the mouth before disappearing into the Velvet Room.

 

Though wide-eyed the whole time, Rise didn't really notice Marie was gone until a few moments later. After a more aware stunned silence, she dashed inside her own home, confused and very, _very_ red.

 

~

 

Passing by Tatsumi Textiles, Kanji waved goodbye to his friends as he tiredly dragged himself to his door.

 

As the rest of the group continued down the street, Naoto lingered for a moment before calling ahead.

 

“Excuse me, senpai,” she said before turning back. “Please don't wait for me.”

 

Kanji cursed under his breath as he stubbed his toe on the doorway.

 

“Kanji-kun,” Naoto caught him by surprise, the blood that was rushing to his foot now surging back up to his face. “If you're not too tired, there's something I feel we should discuss.”

 

“Y-yeah?” Kanji stammered, as he was one to do when talking to her.

 

“When you fought your Shadow…” The detective began. “I'm sorry to say I was too busy thinking to help.”

 

“O-oh.” The tension in Kanji's body loosened. She'd simply come to apologize, no interrogation into why that Shadow was like it was. “Well, it's alright. You came when it mattered. N-not that I meant you shouldn't've come sooner! I mean-”

 

“Kanji-kun.”

 

Kanji's attempts to play it cool died on the vine with Naoto's stern interruption.

 

“... Yes?” He sqeaked like a child who had _surely_ just 'disappointed' an adult three times their size.

 

“While I admit I had more important matters to attend to,” Naoto's calm tone did its best to deal with Kanji's worry. “My speculation has lead me to some realizations about you.”

 

As expected, that revelation caused the detective's friend to seize up all over again, not noticing the nervousness in her own heart at what this discussion may hold.

 

Kanji gulped wordlessly.

 

Naoto sighed. “Let's not lose sleep over this.”

 

“Oh...” Kanji was relieved, but there was a twinge of disappointment that stuck like a splinter. “Yeah, sure.”

 

The blonde stood dejected as he was about to trudge inside.

 

“Shall we go in, or do this outside?”

 

Kanji spent half the time before he finally went to sleep shaking, but for as long as he lived, he thanked whatever gave him the strength to accept that offer.

 

~

 

“... Can I tell you something, Yu-kun?”

 

Surprised, Yu looked over to Yukiko. The young woman had spent the walk back to the inn in complete silence ever since the two had split from Yosuke, Chie, and Teddie. Whether it was from tiredness or thinking about the night they'd been through, Yu decided not to press the issue.

 

“I've been thinking about Yukari-san,” Yukiko started. “What her life was like for the past two years...”

 

“Yukiko, I...” Yu's arm instinctively rose to comfort her, but he knew he couldn't tell her with absolute certainty that she wouldn't be put in that position.

 

“I mean, she got lucky. But...” her lips pressed together, trying to bury the anxiety that came with her worries. “If I lose you like she lost Makoto-san, there may not be a way to bring you back...”

 

“...” Yu sighed, unsure what he should say.

 

“Still, I shouldn't worry,” Yukiko continued with her head held high. “No matter what ends up happening to either of us, I know we'll both do our best to stay together.”

 

Yu was caught off guard, but at least it didn't seem like she'd lose sleep over nightmare scenarios.

 

As the two turned the corner to the Amagi Inn, they pulled each other in closer.

 

“Think about it...” Yu said as they neared the Inn's entrance, lit up with the sound of the staff searching for their missing heiress. “Less than one more year apart, then we'll have all the time in the world.”

 

Yukiko reddened at the cheesy line, but still smiled at her boyfriend's romantic flair.

 

~

 

With nobody except his overbearing housemate to accompany him now, Yosuke tried to spend the walk back home to think about the night's events. Not the least of which was the discoveries he'd made about Chie.

 

'Tried' being as best he could do with Teddie's constant griping, with the joy that came from Labrys asking the Shadow out giving way to impatience and general complaints.

 

“For the love of-! We spend the night fighting for our lives and all you can do is whine about your sore feet?!” Yosuke chided him. “It's closer to home than the hospital, and I've been through too much crap tonight to push you home!”

 

“But Yosukeee...” Teddie groaned in a way Yosuke refused to believe was genuine. “You can't be that worn out! The _koala_ ty of your fighting was so bad, you needed Chie-chan to keep you from getting _bear_ forated!”

 

“That wasn't even close!” Yosuke dismissed both Teddie's claim and puns with equal disdain.

 

 _... Aw, who am I kidding?_ He admitted to himself. _He's right, and now I'm gonna have to find a way to tell the truth about her Shadow without the real one kicking me in who-knows-where..._

 

~

 

Just outside the hospital entrance, Elizabeth serenely gazed out into space. With no more wandering to be done in her near future, the attendant was taking in the night air of the Inaban summer, with the night sky only partially marred by the light of the hospital.

 

The doors of which Elizabeth heard open, followed by the sound of Aigis' distinct walk.

 

“Elizabeth-san?” She asked. “Makoto and Mitsuru-san have been set up in a room. There was some trouble due to the late hour, but the staff didn't seem in the mood to argue.”

 

With a pleased smile never leaving her face, Elizabeth hummed in acknowledgement before she began to walk away.

 

“Wait!” Aigis called out to her, with the attendant stopping and turning on her heel. “With all the effort you have put in, wouldn't you prefer to wait with us?”

 

“That won't be necessary.” Elizabeth politely declined with a wave of her hand. “I've accomplished what I set out to do. We'll be free to meet again in his own time.”

 

Aigis nodded in understanding before she turned to go back inside, stopping just as the automatic doors slid open for her.

 

“Elizabeth-san,” she said. “I just wanted thank you. From all of us, but especially myself and Yukari-san.”

 

The attendant cocked an eyebrow.

 

“I find it intriguing that you let another watch over him.”

 

That comment surprised Aigis. Maybe the time Makoto had spent apart from them broke her fixation, or something that had grown from a mission-based directive had eroded away as she had grown to be more and more human. In the end, she felt little need to know the technicalities.

 

“I suppose that... it seemed only fair.” She said finally, walking through the doors and into the lobby to rejoin her friends.

 

Alone once again, Elizabeth looked up at the third floor of the hospital. The floor was mostly dark save for a single lit room.

 

“Welcome back, my friend.” She said as she opened her grimoire to make her own return home.

 

“Your future awaits.”


	17. One Last Thing...

**THE FOLLOWING MORNING**

 

 

“... once again to our top story:”

 

My head feels like concrete. My eyes screw themselves shut at the feeling and then it hits me;

 

I can move. I'm back.

 

My eyelids are heavy, but I try to steadily force them open. There's nothing but a blur until I blink everything into focus. Without moving my head, I can see Yukari to my left, asleep in a chair next to me.

 

I guess some things never change...

 

She doesn't look that much older than I remember, or maybe that Featherman costume she's wearing makes her look-

 

The news program on the TV over her shoulder grabs my attention. It must've been left on all night. The anchor's voice that woke me up has been replaced by the reporter's. Maybe I can find out where – maybe _when_ – I am...

 

“The small town of Inaba is waking up this morning to a bizarre trail of destruction. The damage appears to extend from several businesses in the town's shopping district all the way to a crater on the outskirts. Several people, including this amateur photographer, have already started crafting theories as to its origin.”

 

“That's a crop circle! It's Martians, I tell ya! Just like that Junes kid said!”

 

Well, at least it's better than that Nyx cult.

 

The news story keeps going.

 

“Local residents initially suspected foul play conducted by the local Junes branch. However, this theory was almost immediately shot down when it was discovered that the store had arguably suffered the worst out of all of them, with its receiving bay, front entrance, and several aisles destroyed by what police suspect is a stolen bulldozer.

 

The branch's manager issued a statement, offering to join with the other local businesses to recover from this incident as a community.”

 

It continues, but it looks like I'll have to wait for everyone to wake up before I get any answers.

 

There's sunlight coming in through the window next to the TV. I don't know how long I've been asleep since... even since I woke up in Yukari's arms. She'd been crying, and now I wonder what happened when they showed up on graduation day.

 

How was I so stupid? I should have told them, or at least made a plan.

 

“Mmm...”

 

Yukari stirs for a bit before she goes back to sleep.

 

Taking a breath, I try to brush my regrets to the side for now. My head is still pretty heavy as I roll it to look at the foot of my bed, and I see them.

 

Everyone's here at last.

 

It's pretty easy to recognize most of them. Ken's changed the most, but it's easy to recognize him cause he hasn't changed his hair since he was a kid. Junpei looks the same, just got a proper beard now. Fuuka, with Koromaru sleeping in her lap, seems as gentle as ever. Aigis is sitting down against the wall, but I'm not sure what she's doing because us watching each other sleep was always kind of one-sided.

 

With nobody else in my field of vision, I tilt my head to the right to find another bed next to the door, with Mitsuru in it. She seems fine, but...

 

What did they go through to get me back?

 

Akihiko's sitting at the foot of her bed. Shirtless. I'd be worried about his state of mind if his face didn't look like he was already facing other problems, even in his sleep. The door's open just a crack, almost like someone left the room. One of the nurses, or..?

 

I shrug it off and try to get some more sleep. Where I am, what's happened, where to go from here...

 

There's plenty of time to find that out later.


End file.
